Loyalty
by justfandomwritings
Summary: Soulmates had been around for nearly as long as Asgard itself. They were a blessing, bestowed upon the people by the goddess Frigga, but she saved her greatest blessing for her son, Loki.
1. Chapter One: Ceremony

**_This story will only be two or three parts. It's a quick mini series I'm throwing together for fun. This story is also available on tumblr and AO3, both accounts also named justfandomwritings, as a reader insert story with some minor edits. Hope you enjoy! Let me know whatcha think! _**

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Soulmates had been around for nearly as long as Asgard itself. They were a blessing, bestowed upon the people by the goddess Frigga.

Asgard was not always a kind place. Even in times of peace, the people knew only a warrior's culture. The armory and the colosseum were sacred space; they saw their equal only in the crypts or Yggdrasil. Daughters were prided for nothing but their ability to breed strong warriors. Sons were trained to fight from the day they learned to walk. Every man worth his keep knew how to wield a sword and carried one at all times, even around the city, and being placed amongst the palace guard was the highest honor that Asgard could offer. Men were judged on strength and physical prowess rather than their hearts or minds. Even royalty, even the gods of the palace, were affected. They were firm in their anger and quick to wrath. The Nine Realms were ruled by Asgard, but they were ruled only through fear.

Frigga wanted none of it. Odin's benevolent wife sought to make Asgard a better place for all, rich and poor, royal and peasant. She was tired of watching the elite order the lesser to go die for an unworthy cause. She was tired of watching wealthy captains ride back into Asgard claiming victory when every poor soldier under their command had fallen to the sword. She was tired of seeing Asgardians with eternity laid out before them with no purpose to their time except bloodshed.

She wanted women to be valued for all they had to offer, not just the men they could create. She wanted men to think before they spoke, listen before they acted. She wanted the people to find their own worth, carve their own path, make their own way; she wanted wisdom and love to be as important as courage and power. She wanted peace, a true peace, not one made tense by the threat of a sword at the neck of the other realms; and she knew only one way she could help see her dream come to reality.

As the wife of the king, she had always laid claim to the territories of marriage and fertility, the ideal wife and mother for her family and for all of Asgard.

"Love," Frigga used to say, "is easy. Marriage is far more difficult." Love was a deep emotion but one she maintained almost any combination of two people could feel for one another given the right timing, experience, and circumstance. Marriage was something infinitely more complex, harder to achieve, and almost impossible to perfect.

Every Asgardian eventually underwent the ceremony of marriage, if for nothing more than appearances and the hope of gaining the queen's favor. However, it never ended well. Marriages were made not by matching two people who shared a love capable of withstanding the tests of time but by matching two beings in a mutually beneficial class standing.

If Asgardians shared the lifespan of Midgard the results would not have been worthy of note; marital bliss in Asgard, even in the most unhappy of pairings, often lasted a century or two, enough to last a lifetime in the realm of mortal men. Instead, those Asgardians who did not go to war, or at least those who survived the war, lived to be well past ten thousand years before death would claim them naturally: one lifetime of bliss followed by ninety-nine of pain and anger. By their fifth century, marriage was just a formality of title for most: something acknowledged for propriety at the palace but rarely upheld in the streets, much less in the bed.

Tolerating their own existence for ten thousand years was hard enough for most of Asgard; finding someone else to tolerate for so long was improbable. Finding someone else to love for that length of time? And love enough to marry? Impossible. It wasn't a once in a lifetime occurrence. It was once in existence, and Frigga had been the once.

She had seen Odin coming for her a century away. She was the goddess of marriage; even the king of Asgard would not persuade her into one she thought either of them would eventually foresake. She saw who he was and sought to find out who he would become. By the time he arrived, she knew he was the one for her.

Frigga intended to use her gifts of magic and foresight to perfect her domain, to help others experience what she had found. With foresight, she saw her realm and all its citizens that had been and would be, and with magic she bound each to their perfect mate. Every Asgardian would eventually find their match; Frigga would see to that. Some found theirs in the houses of their greatest enemies; some found them outside the Nine Realms; some would not find them for centuries to come. Eventually, however, every house in Asgard would be filled with a love so deep it touched the soul.

The princes were a special case. Odin had asked for some say in the matter of their futures, and Frigga had politely refused. Odin wanted his sons to find the love he shared with Frigga, but what Odin needed was vastly different.

Odin would never willingly accept the best love match if it meant compromising nobility. If Thor's one true love was a farmer's daughter from the rolling hills outside the capital, Odin would stand in the way and force another match as good enough, to some general's daughter Thor could tolerate for the rest of existence. If Loki found his solace with a woman from Midgard, Odin would sooner break the magic binding the pair or disown his own son than bring a mortal to the palace as a princess. He wanted peace and happiness, but he demanded respect and status more.

Frigga understood the severity of the situation. Love was her priority for her sons, but there was much to consider even beyond that.

Choosing a mate for Thor meant electing Asgard's future queen. Thor's mate would rule Asgard at his side for millennia to come. Peace in Asgard and peace in the Nine Realms could be achieved with the touch of her hand or wiped out with a turn of her head. It would be her task to carry on Frigga's work when Frigga's time came. It would be this woman's responsibility, and her responsibility alone, to bring soulmates to the generations that would come after Frigga's end. She would bare Thor an heir and choose that heir's mate, solely answerable for the next generation, as the successor she chose would be after her and the next after that.

Yet, somehow, Frigga was infinitely more worried about finding a mate for her second son.

Choosing a mate for Loki meant deciding fate itself. The Nine Realms would rely on her decision of Thor's mate, but reality depended on Loki's. With Loki, went everything. If Frigga chose right, it could mean eternal bliss. If she chose wrong, it could mean the end of Asgard, the end of life, the end of days. Ragnarok.

It was fitting, truly, that Loki was the pivot from which the pendulum of existence swung. His was a life of contradictions and extremes. The God of Mischief who valued nothing if not justice. The Lie-Smith who could trick anyone undetected but had been deceived since birth. The creator of Asgard's greatest treasures, punished for their very existence. The second son who was born to be a king. A son of Asgard and a son of Asgard's greatest enemy.

Frigga had watched the future of her son closely. She had foreseen the pendulum swinging both ways. In one future, she had seen his happiness, with a love and family, seen him reach heights of greatness Thor could never hope to achieve. Loki would be truly magnificent. All of the Nine Realms would shower him in praises, and he would only ever listen to those of his love. She was his everything, and he brought peace, happiness, and justice to all in her name.

In another future, she watched as he lived a life alone. Surrounded by those he loved that did not love him in return. Completely solitary in his existence. Years passed of being misunderstood, and he could not trust or rely on anyone. He was mocked and ridiculed by his own brother. He was imprisoned and beaten by the All-Father. His accomplishments were thrown in his face like insults. He was pushed to extremes that no other man could ever bare and then was belittled for finally acting on them long after anyone else would have broken. Loki grew to hate Asgard, and rightfully so. A lack of understanding, a lack of love for one man, was all it took to tear life itself apart.

Loki and Asgard were both capable of causing great joy and great pain to one another. Only one woman in history would stand a chance of determining the fate of both. Even then, Frigga was still unsure she would be enough. There were so many ways it could go wrong, and only one way it went right. Still, Asgard be damned; she was Frigga's only chance at giving her son happiness.

Sigyn was born on the final day of the Final War, the day that ended all war in Asgard, the day Laufey and Odin signed their peace treaty, the day Odin brought Loki home to Asgard, the day that launched a millennia of peace. It was how her parents came by the name. It was an old name from the days before Asgard, during the reign of Buri, Odin's grandfather. It meant "Friend of Victory", a unique name. Despite Odin's many victories, and the many victories of his father Borr, none had bore the name since it was first given so long ago. There had been too many battles to count, too many wars to name. Asgard had won them all, but one came so quickly after another that there was never time for celebration, never time to acknowledge the victory. This, Frigga hoped, the peace with Jotunheim, would mark the end. Sigyn's birth would mark the final victory, in more ways than one.

Sigyn was the first child born of a pair of soulmates. Her parents were the only pair in existence to find each other without Frigga's help. Neighbors who had known each other since birth, they fell in love gradually over centuries, an easy kind of love that would become common place after Frigga's intervention but was unheard of before. They had been together for almost a century before Frigga confirmed for them that they were in fact each other's perfect match, not that either really needed the confirmation; they both knew. Their love was deep and boundless. It had no stipulations and saw no hesitations, and their daughter's was the same.

On the day each Asgardian came of age, it was tradition to come to the palace and meet the king and queen, so that the king could attest to the domain of the one who stood before him. If they were a peasant, he would name them as heir to their family's lands or to some appropriate position in society: member of the Asgardian army or healer of an outpost. If they were nobility, he would name them a god. He would look on them and their works and declare before the Nine Realms that some portion of his dominion, appropriate to their rank and behavior, was to be overseen by the man or woman before him.

Then, Frigga would step down to provide her blessing for their future. She would lean in and whisper a name. Odin's proclamations were for all of the Nine Realms to hear; Frigga's were for only their ears.

Sigyn knew what to expect, and she knew this was not it.

When she stepped through the doors, Sigyn was astounded to see the throne room completely full of Asgard's highest ranking citizens. Coming of age ceremonies were often spectated affairs. Family were required to attend to witness what holdings of their family name would belong to each member as they came of age. Friends often came to serve as the witnesses and to provide support. Occasionally, a few elderly Asgardians would treat the ceremony as a spectators affair and would come to the palace to watch simply for lack of anything better to do. Rarely was there more than a small crowd around the dais, and on those occasions it was only for the coming of age of Asgard's highest nobility.

The last great ceremony had been the Vanir goddess Freya's coming of age two decades ago, and none in the audience or in the Nine Realms were surprised to hear she had been declared the goddess of love and beauty. All of the young men of Asgard, the men who were too young to know the names of their own mates yet, had gathered in the hall, crowding in until Odin had to send some away to make room for Freya's brother to join the gathering throng. All hoped that Frigga would whisper their name to the stunning goddess, and her eyes would turn to seek them out in the hall. No such thing had happened, of course, Frigga had leaned in to whisper to Freya for several moments, and Freya had eventually left the ceremony with a look of sad but ferocious determination.

Sigyn was nobility but of the lowest kind, far lower than Freya, who watched her from the throngs with a cool, calculating gaze. Sigyn knew to expect her parents and younger siblings, and she had been correct in hoping that her dearest friends, Idunna and Semya, would make time to attend. Twelve at the most, that had been the group she thought was waiting for her. This group, now, who had come to watch Sigyn was greater in size and scope than the ceremony of all but the two sons of Odin themselves. It scared her. She did not know what they were waiting for.

Odin sat forward on the edge of his throne, clutching his speer firmly in his right hand as if preparing for attack rather than a simple speech. His expression was stern, cold. The King wasn't one known to smile, but his face seemed particularly void of feeling on this day.

Sigyn had expected no more from him, but she still felt the need to avert her eyes to the queen. Frigga's ever-present, comforting smile was all that kept Sigyn's feet moving across the marble floors. She truly was the mother of Asgard. Stood just over Odin's right shoulder, her wordless encouragement pulled Sigyn from where she stood frozen in the doorway. Nobles pushed in on either side as she walked up the thin aisle that had been left for her approach. It felt like the longest walk of her life.

On either side of the throne stood the princes, decked in armor and ready for war just as their father was. Thor stood at Odin's right hand, guarding his blinded side, ever the younger copy of the aging king. His red cloak billowed out behind him as his winged helmet gleamed in the early morning sun. With Mjolnir in hand, the Crown Prince of Asgard cut what should have been an intimidating figure, but one that struck Sigyn as simply arrogant.

Loki, on the King's other side, was renowned for his arrogance, yet Sigyn found him rather intimidating. An odd reversal of roles for the princes, but one Sigyn was sure happened only in her mind. The golden mage had long been thought the lesser of the two brothers for his slimmer build and affinity for magic. Sigyn had been at his coming of age when Loki was named the God of Magic, and she had long heard the whispered, "more like the God of Mischief", "Odin names his son the God of Lies." Like the rest of Asgard, she knew nothing of the talents Loki so richly employed, but her inexperience had led her to view the prince with greater caution rather than simple condescension.

Sigyn avoided meeting either princes gaze as she knelt before the All-Father. The eyes of all of Asgard were on her, and she still did not know why.

"Lady Sigyn," The King's voice boomed across the silence of the room. "You have come before the Nine Realms to be received for the first time as a woman grown, to be judged for your place in Asgard, and to be rewarded for your service of past, present, and future."

"Yes, My King," The response was automatic. Everything else was different, but the words Odin spoke were the exact same as her friend, Semya's, coming of age ceremony just five years before. At least this part, she knew what was expected of her.

"Your first century of life has proven you a good and faithful servant of your people." Odin had declared this sentiment to every Asgardian who had come before him where Sigyn now stood, and she wondered if any Asgardian would already be found lacking by this age. "You stand before me today, a good and faithful servant of your people." Perhaps not showing up for the coming of age ceremony would be considered lacking in good faith.

Then, the King departed script, and Sigyn's eyes jerked up from the floor to her king. At Semya's, and every other, coming of age ceremony she had attended, the All-Father would continue with, "And in your years to come you will continue a good and faithful servant of your people. For that, I grant you," and then he would name them to their place.

Instead, the king continued. "And in your years to come, you will prove, before all the Nine Realms, to truly be your people's greatest and most faithful servant." A murmur rippled through the hall, though it didn't last long as Odin continued to speak. "For that, I grant you domain over what I hold most precious. Loyalty. From the simple loyalty between friends to the greatest loyalty of a king to his realm, all will be held responsible to you, even me." Odin raised his spear and bounded the base to the ground. A rush of wind blew over the waiting crowd, and it was done, never to be undone. The loyalty of Asgard belonged to Sigyn, and with his added words, "even me", even Odin himself could not take it away.

A wave of sound started from the back of the crowd and worked its way forward; cheers, Sigyn believed. Sigyn didn't dare to stand before it or turn to face it. She stayed unmoved by the declaration and unmoved by the noise. Surely, some of it was shock as she watched the king set aside his spear and lean back in his chair. A greater part of it was fear. She was afraid to move.

Nothing about this day had gone as planned. Sigyn had been content that morning in the knowledge that she would probably be named goddess of some oddly particular thing or emotion or place. She had secretly hoped it would be something fun, something that would give her some excuse to enjoy herself. She had long since taken over for her mother in raising her younger siblings, and she was ready and willing to continue with that or some other more stoic responsibility, but she still had longed for something that would bring her a breath of fresh air, some small sense of levity. Instead, All of Asgard had watched as she had been given power that reached over even the All-Father himself. All of Asgard had watched as she was declared the Realm's greatest servant. Not exactly the levity she had hoped for.

Her fear kept her frozen where she had heard the news. Frigga, All-Mother, was expected to step down from the dais, to hold out a hand for her and help her to her feet, symbolizing forever the motherly role she played for all Asgardians. Once they were both on their feet, she was supposed to whisper a name in Sigyn's ear and escort her from the hall where she could be on her way.

Instead, Frigga waited a moment behind her husband. When her eyes met Sigyn's, she gave the same reassuring smile as early. Sigyn assumed that meant she was right to remain kneeling, but she was honestly in too much shock to infer anything clearly about her situation.

The cheers were almost deafening, and Sigyn was completely unsure as to why. Asgard had all just watched their King, the All-Father, Ruler of the Nine Realms, make himself even in some small part subservient to a young girl, barely of age, and far beneath him in stature and standing. They were cheering the humbling of their king, the subjugation of their loyalty to a new, weak, Goddess of Asgard.

It was several long moments before the cheers began to die down, and once they began, Frigga stepped out from behind her husband, silencing them in an instant. She walked down the short steps to stand above Sigyn and held out her hand.

Sigyn took it and stood on instinct more than response to her situation. She wasn't even surprised when Frigga too, departed from what was expected.

"We gather you all here today," Frigga's voice did not boom out like Odin's. It was soft and gentle. Its power came, not from volume, but from its ability to quiet everyone so instantly that her every word was heard just as well as her husband's, "not to witness the age of this great servant of Asgard. But rather, to meet your future princess."

Frigga touched a kind hand to Sigyn's cheek and brought her eyes up to look into them. Frigga didn't whisper the name to Sigyn as she did to everyone else, but even though all of Asgard heard, the words were still only for ears. "If it please you, my dear, I would join you in meeting my son, Prince Loki."


	2. Chapter Two: Family

Sigyn stood alone in the center of a large octagonal room. It was more of a house than a room. She was fairly certain that, even with her family's status as nobility, most if not all of her home could fit within the eight walls around her. If she started pacing off steps from one end to the other, she was sure it might take a hundred, maybe more.

"Feel free to make yourself comfortable," had been Frigga's last words before she left the room, but Sigyn was absolutely certain that she could not make herself feel comfortable here any time in the foreseeable future.

All eight walls were lined with dark wooden shelves that were delicately stacked with books. There were no bookends to match the ones her father had at home. There was no need to force any book to remain upright. Every inch of space was being used. The only break from the stacks of texts were for a large golden fireplace directly across from the entrance and for three doors made of a dark wood brushed with intricate gold detailing that matched and blended in with the bookcases. There was a reverence, a superiority, to everything in the place. Each book was placed with care and had clearly been organized just so. The table between the entrance and one of the doors was cluttered with scrolls and texts as if someone had left in a hurry, yet nothing on its surface seemed out of place. The backless stool at the writing desk in the center gave a sense of urgency and purpose to the stack of letters piled in the ornate green box labeled for responses. Even the plush cushions on the pair of armchairs by the fire were utterly regal in design and placement. Sigyn was scared to touch anything. It all seemed perfect and priceless. She felt as if she were in a museum.

Sigyn had only been to a museum once thus far in her existence. There weren't terribly many of them on Asgard. Most people lived long enough to experience most of Asgard's history, but a small home deep in the valley, away from the capital, played host to a vast collection of artifacts from the Age of the Valkyries. It was a private collection, assembled by a scholar who was employed as one of Asgard's official historians. He opened his home once every few years, whenever he had added a new piece to his collection. Sigyn had gone down to visit nearly five decades ago when the man, she believed his name was Felman, announced he had acquired a Valkyrie's sword. She never found out where he got it, but when Sigyn saw it she knew it was the genuine article.

At the time, she had begged her mother for a sword just like it, begged her mother to let her become a Valkyrie. Her mother had only laughed when her brother, Osmond, joined in the pleading and explained to the pair that the Valkyrie were from an age long passed. She and Osmond both adamantly refused their mother's logic, insisting that they would become Valkyries and thus their memory would live on forever. It had only been when Osmond picked up the sword to declare himself a protector of the realm that their mother began to scold them for their childishness. Sigyn did not learn until much later, when she finally understood what being a warrior entailed and what violence truly cost, that she under no circumstances wished to become a Valkyrie, but she did leave the museum that day with a clear understanding of her place within the material world. Certain things were not meant to be touched, especially in museums.

This room was a museum of a far different kind to Felman's Valkyrie shrine, but a museum all the same. Unlike Felman's sword, nothing here was simply there for show. It all served some higher function; decoration only existed in beautiful, purposeful things that were simply not being used at that given moment: the scrolls scattered around the desk, one armchair subtly shifted half a length closer to the fire, a stack of papers left on a stand by the door. The spines of the books, lining the room like a warm cloak, showed subtle signs of ware. Each had been handled with extreme care, but handled even so. The instruments on the table, pressed far back against the wall to save their fragile state, showed signs of discoloration and scratches from their overuse.

Sigyn hedged her way slowly closer to one of three black chaise lounges that occupied the very center of the room. In the purest example of useful things, a book had been left lying open upon one. Sigyn made an effort not to touch it but bent over to read the title nonetheless, 'A Political History of the Second Great Aesir-Vanir War'. Sigyn tried not to laugh. She had never spoken to the man, but she did not need to meet him to know this room belonged to Loki. His presence dripped from every surface.

Someone was meant to touch these things, and like the museum Sigyn knew she was not that someone.

"It's an interesting read if you're at all interested in the art of preventing conflict."

Sigyn jerked into an upright position and turned to face the sound. She hadn't heard the door open or close; she wasn't entirely sure it had. Not that it would be surprising to know the God of Magic did not use doors, if true, Sigyn was fairly certain that would be the most incredibly mundane rumor she had ever heard about the younger prince. She wanted it to be true; the idea that her mere presence was disrupting enough to warrant the irregular use of some silent precaution was disconcerting.

"Forgive me, my prince, but was the Second War not the bloodiest in Aesir history?"

Loki waved her concern away. "If we only take away from a book the facts that are written on the page than no book in existence would be worth reading."

With a practiced nonchalance Sigyn had seen on display at many royal occasions, Loki removed his helm by a firm grip on one of its horns. Long hair fell to frame his face, shielding his eyes from Sigyn as he turned his head to remove his green cloak. "I am of the personal belief that a simple series of negotiations and a general improvement of Aesir court etiquette could have prevented most, if not the entirety, of the Second War." The helmet was set aside on the same cluttered table Sigyn had been observing previously so that his hands could be free to fold his cloak as he spoke. "With no lands or gold gained and no real cause or moral value to fight for, it seems impossible to suggest that the war was worth the cost, so I feel it is only prudent for study in the art of avoiding it altogether."

Finally, Loki looked up and met her eyes. They had not spoken in the throne room, and he had not accompanied her and the All-Mother on their walk to his chambers. Sigyn was sure she must have met his gaze before at some royal function or another. She had been forced to go to so many over the years that the odds were less likely that she hadn't than that she had. Still, she didn't recall ever looking Prince Loki in the eyes, and now that she had she was certain she would remember if it had happened before.

Sigyn was not one for poetry or frivolous exaltation, but his eyes reminded her of home. Not for any deeply profound reason. In fact, she didn't see anything in them at all; Loki's face was a well-practiced mask that was firmly in place even in his own chambers, even with his own mate. There was no emotion in his expression, not even his eyes. Their color was what drew her in.

Most members of nobility vied to live as near the palace gates as their status could manage. Sigyn's parents, knowing that they would never achieve any great feat of standing, had decided to go a different way. They made their home down by the water, not far from the docks, in a far poorer region of Asgard. The palace had been a distant icon in Sigyn's life, but the sea was an ever present friend.

Loki's eyes reminded her of the tides. In the bright glow that seemed ever-present in his room despite its lack of candles, they appeared a pale blue-green. The same shade as the crest of the shallow waves that lapped at her feet ever since she toddled out into the sea as a child. It was a beautiful color, always her favorite shade of blue or green, yet it lacked depth. The waters in Asgard were so clear that even those with the poorest eyesight could always see to the bottom of the sea floor, no matter how deep or shallow that water may be. The waves that matched Loki's eyes were a weak, hollow force of nature; words that even the most inattentive Asgardian would never use to describe the prince. No, Loki's eyes lacked depth by choice. Whatever wall he had built was just beneath the surface of his eyes, his skin. No one had even the slightest hint of Loki's true person; all of him was wrapped in a shield.

Sigyn wondered if this was all a test. If Loki's walls were really so high and genuinely covered so much of his true person, then it must draw some doubt from both of them on the All-Mother. No one had ever truly known him, not even his dearly beloved Frigga. He knew this better than anyone. Sigyn was certain he doubted his mother's ability to choose his mate, because just then she was starting to have doubts herself.

Any deep conversation on their status would have to be postponed for another day when both were not so shaken and on-guard. Matching Loki's neutrality, showing as little of herself as he did of him, seemed the best way to pass the test without forcing a decision. "Would it not be better, then, to study the First Aesir-Vanir War? Asgard's gains in the first were barely maintained in the Second and lost as part of the truce that ended the Third. One could argue that on balance, all of the wars, even the First War which Asgard soundly won, proved useless in the long term. It would have been better to never fight at all than to lose lives winning ground we knew we would eventually lose."

Loki placed his cloak beside his helm on the crowded table and approached his mate. "An interesting proposition, though it operates under the assumption that it can be known a war is a lost cause before it even begins. At the time the First War seemed a prudent decision to those in power. It is the Second which was most obviously not worth fighting."

"Yes, that assumption must be made," Sigyn took several steps back as Loki approached, leaving his path to his seat open for him, "but I would argue that gold was the initial cause for the First War and should not be a consideration by a king to go to war, particularly when a Realm is already prosperous. No amount of excess gold will bring back the men lost fighting for it, and in excess, more gold will not significantly improve the existence of a realm's surviving citizens. So why would growing a reserve be considered more valuable than the lives of one's soldiers?"

Loki settled on the edge of his chaise and waved a hand to the one opposite him, offering Sigyn a seat. She took it in silence, not at all relaxing at the feel of the soft fabric. "I would have to agree with that assessment. Unfortunately, I think we differ on where we believe one's influence can have the greatest effect. The Second War was a result of poor political advising, entirely avoidable if a sound, trustworthy voice of reason was allowed to enter the war room. Whereas the First War was a firm and deliberate action, the decision of a single man who's mind could not and cannot be changed. It was not avoidable because no one wished to avoid it. Far easier to fix the mistakes of a group of people than it is to change one person fundamentally."

Sigyn sat silently in contemplation. She was sure there as a right response, but if there was, she didn't know it. "Given that I only met the man today, I suppose I will have to default to your judgment where the All-Father's decisions are concerned."

A twinge of emotion flashed across Loki's face before his mask cemented back in place. "That might not be the wisest course of action. Odin is the only one who is all knowing; I can't claim to understand his actions."

"Such a shame," Sigyn mused more to herself than anything. "The All-Mother tried speaking to me on our way here, but all that was running through my head was the urge to ask her what in the Nine Realms the All-Father was thinking."

"Yes," Loki's eyebrow quirked upwards, clearly showing his amusement. "I imagine she has an answer to that, though not one she'd share with you."

"No, she didn't share. Your mother proved quite the secret keeper."

Loki agreed with a nod of his head. "I think you'll find that describes nearly everyone in the palace, I'm afraid."

"Even you?" Sigyn replied without thinking and immediately regretted letting the words slip. Soulmate he may be, but Loki was still a Prince of Asgard, her superior in every way, a complete stranger wielding the power to end her with a word.

Loki let the words hang in the air for a few moments. It had been many years since anyone, even Thor, had summoned the courage to question him. In some ways, it was refreshing to be treated simply as a person. In other ways, it was dangerous. Loki's walls existed for a reason. He trusted his mother implicitly, but even she wasn't allowed past them. The Queen couldn't really expect him to let this woman in.

Loki's reply was only two words. "Especially me."

* * *

The door to the left of Loki's fireplace turned out to be a guest room, or as Frigga had now repurposed it, her room.

Loki didn't openly object to the affair, but he certainly didn't seem pleased with the result.

When Frigga and her maids came to assist Sigyn in moving her things, she explained that despite what public perception might have Sigyn believe, Loki received more guests than any other resident of the palace, more even than Odin. It was news that struck quite the blow to Sigyn. She had thought she knew enough of the young prince's activities from simple context of his place in society and the long winded stories from her younger brother, Narfi. Clearly, she was wrong.

Of course, there were the obvious guests: Loki's compatriots. For as long as Sigyn had lived, magic had been seen as the inferior tactic to physical violence. Loki's appointment as God of Magic had done nothing to change that in the minds of the masses, but a minority saw a new opportunity or a better way. A growing network of mages and magicians was slowly permeating every corner of the Nine Realms and beyond, and Loki was at their center. A mentor to an entirely new group of people: warriors not strong enough to wield a sword, women who wanted to prove they belonged on the battlefield, those who saw a way around the bloodshed. Whatever affliction brought them to magic, from far and wide, they all came to see Loki.

Their pilgrimages to the Master of Magic had to be scheduled around countless foreign dignitaries. Royalty and figureheads traversing the galaxy would wait hours to stand before Odin in Asgard's Throne Room, but the laborers, advisors, ambassadors, merchants, traders, the people who did the brute work of carrying the Realms, all knew that a visit to Loki's chambers was the best way to see their business completed.

His cluttered writing desk brought peace to the Muspelheim Rebellion. A debate, hotly contested in his lounge, saw to the first ever trade agreement between Nidavellir and Alfheim. He watched over to Asgard's winter storehouses, the training of its new healers, the complicated expenses generated by Thor's constant battles. What the All-Father did not want to do, Loki had to do.

If it had come from anyone else, a lack of guest chambers adjoining their room would sound like a ludicrous complaint, but coming from Loki, it may well have been a diplomatic emergency, not that he would show if it was.

"Thank you kindly for your assistance, Mother, Fulla, Syn. Your help has been greatly appreciated." Loki's tone was gracious and accepting as he held his chamber door open to his mother and two of her maids. "I do hope you all have a lovely evening."

"You won't be at supper, my son?" Frigga paused her exit to inquire.

"I am afraid I will be busy this evening, but I look forward to seeing you in the morning."

Frigga looked disappointed in his response, but only shot a quick glance in Sigyn's direction as a protest before she left the pair alone.

"Shall I leave you to work?" Sigyn gestured from herself to the exit.

"No," Loki waved her concern away and headed straight for his deck. "It is only some urgent correspondence. I would appreciate quiet, but you do not need to leave unless you wish." Loki handled her with all the grace expected of a member of court, but for a man often mocked as the God of Lies, his agitation was easily read.

Sigyn retreated silently to her room and did not even bother with closing her door for fear of the noise it would make. It seemed a prudent time to write her own family.

Both of her parents would be urgently expecting detailed letters about what had happened, how her day had gone, how she had been treated, and how she was feeling. Those would be lengthy but easy to write, factual and honest. She kept nothing from her parents before and felt no need to start.

Her brothers and sisters, on the other hand, were an entirely different affair. Sigyn was the eldest of nine siblings, but in the moment she could think to write only one.

Narfi was seventh in the line behind his identical twin brother, Torgeir. While the older trio of boys, Osmond, Ivar, and Torgeir, spent their days anxiously training with swords and spears, determined to become the new Warrior's Three, Narfi had whiled away his time at his sister's feet. Sigyn read to him until he learned for himself; then he would follow her around and read to her as she mended skirts or cooked dinner, took care of the baby or ran errands for their parents. He spent his days conversing with his tutors, not trying to escape their clutches. He thirsted only for knowledge, not blood.

Narfi would think her new chambers were better than Valhalla itself, and she described every intricate feature for him. From the spacious armchairs to the overwhelming fireplace, stacks of books and endless writing supplies. She detailed her conversation with Loki. It was the sort of debate only Narfi would appreciate, and she was sure he would write back with his own thoughts on the matter. It comforted her to know that, even though so much of her life had changed in a single moment, her siblings would always be by her side, if not physically than at least in spirit.

She took the letters down with her to supper, tucking them in a satchel intent on asking Frigga who she could speak to about sending them.

Sigyn would have asked Loki, but as she passed him on her way out, he had not even spared her a glance. His hand flew over the paper in front of him so fast it blurred, and Sigyn was struck by the miracle that he could not only move so quickly but keep up with his blistering pace mentally. How any man could write so fast and still take all night to divulge everything he had to say, Sigyn did not know.

She left him to his own devices and was not surprised when she returned, nearly three hours later, well after dark, to a growing stack of letters on the floor beside Loki's still hunched back.

His hand wasn't flying anymore so much as gliding. His actions were slow and deliberate. There was no pause or faltering of his movements, but he was clearly taking his time to get this one right. Whatever the contents, Sigyn was sure they were important.

"Pardon me," she called at a low volume to give him the choice to ignore it.

He didn't, of course. Loki was nothing if not proper in his manner. "Yes?" He was trying very hard not to sound annoyed, and it showed in his face when he turned to her. "I didn't realize you left." His eyes flitted down to the tray in her arms.

"Supper with your family. Frigga insisted." Sigyn didn't want to disturb his desk or the pile of letters beside it, so she set the tray down on the closest surface she dared: on his lounge. "She said I should expect you to remain here for many hours yet, so I thought it prudent to bring back something for you to eat."

Loki moved with incredibly caution as he set his writing aside, keeping his eyes on her the entire time as he got up and walked to his seat. "Thank you. I can't say I expected this."

"I wouldn't thank me yet, prince. It was only the food left untouched at the final setting. I'm unsure if it's to your taste." Sigyn sat down on the seat she'd occupied during their earlier conversation.

Loki took to the food just as cautiously as he'd set aside his work. Sigyn would have thought he was hesitant to take a break, but his slow bite of food made her suspect it went deeper than that.

The place setting from which she had taken the meal had been the empty one to her right during supper, the seat between her and Frigga, over which the two women had spent most of the night talking. It had clearly been the spot meant for Loki.

His absence had been noted. Frigga spoke at length of how little she saw her second son these days, and Sigyn seemed to be the only one of the three other gods at the table who actually listened.

Thor and Odin had been so engrossed in discussion of his training that they had barely spoken to the Queen and had only acknowledged Sigyn to introduce themselves officially. She wondered to herself if it was always like this, if Thor and Odin always ignored Frigga or if her presence as a third party simply afforded them the opportunity to talk only to each other. It seemed a horribly lonely existence either way: one where her husband and son rarely spoke to her, the other where they only conversed with her out of duty.

Where Thor's attentions clearly belonged to Odin, it was obvious that Loki was his mother's son. Sigyn recognized her pain, but she felt little pity for the All-Mother. Frigga bemoaned the lack of his presence, but she never once mentioned eating in his chambers with him, or sitting with him as he did work meant for her husband the king, or relieving some of her time at court with noble woman in exchange for time with her son. Complaints surrounded Loki's decision, without acknowledgment of his reasons.

No one else had thought of him beyond the fact that he was not there. It had been Sigyn's initiative to enter the kitchen and take a servant's tray, to load it with food, and bring it to her newly declared mate. She wondered to herself, for it was something she could never spoke to another soul, if Loki's mistrust of her delivery tray came from a mistrust of kindness.

"Well," Loki spoke after swallowing a bite of meat, "it is certainly better than my alternative was."

"Yes, Frigga mentioned you often go without supper. I don't know how. I think my stomach would begin to eat itself."

It wasn't a very good joke, but it did manage to force a smile from the brooding man. "Then perhaps, you have saved me from a terrible fate. I am in your debt."

Sigyn reached behind her to the backside of the sash tied around her waist and pulled out her three letters. "Then, it is a terribly good thing that I need a favor from you, because I would hate for you to remain indebted to me for the rest of eternity."

Loki stopped eating and slowly set down the roll of bread he was about to bite. The teasing smile that had been present fell away instantly at the mention of any kind of work. "You know, most people wait a whole day before they cash in their favors."

"Ah but this one is quite urgent." Sigyn set the papers in the hand Loki stretched out. "They're letters, to my family. Frigga said the fastest way to get them delivered would be to mix them in with yours before they were taken in the morning."

Loki's tension seemed to ease. Whatever he thought she was going to ask of him, it hadn't been that. "Having me in one's debt can be quite valuable, and you're using it to send faster letters." He was clearly amused.

Sigyn chuckled to herself and decided to kick her feet up and lean into the back rest. "Bringing you one meal seems hardly deserving of any more than that, but I'll keep my eyes open for ways to further your obligation to me."

"Noted." Loki's fingers absently traced over the letters as he flipped between the three to see the name inscribed on each. "Your father is Delling, and your mother is Dysis, correct?"

"Yes," Sigyn watched Loki's curious expression as he stared at the letters, unclear where he was taking this line of thinking.

"You are the eldest of eight siblings."

"Nine, now," Sigyn corrected. "Mother gave birth to a son, Aaren, just shy of a year ago now. Eir believes it will be her last."

Loki set aside the two letters on top and held up the third. "Why have you written to only one of your siblings? I admit I know very little of your family, but I believed them to be close."

"We are," Sigyn sat back up quickly. She knew that one assumption based on a letter was nothing to become defensive over, but she was the Goddess of Loyalty for a reason. That was one thing the All-Father had not been mistaken on. "Narfi just seems the only one I have anything to say to at the moment. The two youngest are too small to read. My three eldest brothers don't care to read. While my sisters, Atali and Dagmar, enjoy the gossip of court far to much and will stand for no less than speaking in person. Mother will inform them of anything they wish to know to tide them over till I may visit."

"Then," Loki flipped the letter, so she could read her brother's name. "May I ask why you don't wait to speak to Narfi?"

Sigyn smiled and gestured a hand to the walls of Loki's chambers. "All of this is why. The others wouldn't care for a description, but Narfi would love this place." Sigyn paused for a moment then thought to clarify. "Not the palace, just this room. When his twin was asking for swords and armor, Narfi was asking for paper and books. He has no interest in fighting, no interest in warriors or bloodshed. He longs to be a diplomat. A hard road as the fourth son of minor god, but a road he is determined to travel."

Loki gently thumbed over the seal of the letter, eyeing it with a contemplative look. "Perhaps," he mused, finally taking his bite of bread, "if you insist on forcing meals upon me, I can better repay your kindness by helping him."

* * *

For a month, Sigyn would spend her days with a member of the higher nobility, learning the ways of the Aesir court. Frigga occupied most of her time, explaining to her the duties that would accompany her place in the royal house. Once a week, her dear friend Idunna would take the queen's place, explaining the formalities that came with royal ceremony.

Her surprise came when, a week after entering the palace, it was Freyja who stood at her door.

Freyja, the Vanir goddess, was known for little beyond her beauty, but Frigga had seen the woman's true talents and sent her to Sigyn immediately. The duties adopted by Loki meant that, no matter the status of her relationship with the prince, Sigyn would be forced to frequently brush shoulders with many noteworthy delegates. According to Frigga, Freyja was a better candidate than anyone, including herself, to assist her in those situations.

Sigyn initially thought these lessons would be simple, focused on appearances, but Freyja had proven those assumptions wrong instantly.

Sigyn had seen her share of strict tutors in her day, but Freyja was another beast entirely. She expected perfection every second of every day they were together. Sure, there were critiques of Sigyn's posture and style, but she watched Sigyn's words and actions even more carefully.

The first time Freyja had sat with Sigyn she lulled her into a pleasant conversation about the gorgeous blooms of Alfheim and gradually turned the conversation on its head with comparisons showing its inferiority to her realm, Vanaheim. Groundwork so well laid; Sigyn fell for Freyja's bait. Freyja let Sigyn finish her first monologue comparing Alfheim's superior resources to Vanaheim's superior military before she knocked her back a step.

"There is a fine line between a surprisingly intriguing intellectual and an irritating braggart. People want you to be nothing more than a pretty face. To earn their respect, you have to prove there is more to you than that but not so much more as to scare them away, and there are only two ways to achieve that. The first is to be exactly as sweet and mildly interesting as you're needed to be, but you are too intelligent for that. The second option is to be so superior to the rest of the conversation that you are able to convince them you are what they want you to be."

As the month went by and Frigga and Idunna ran low on things to share with Sigyn, Freyja only found more. Save Odin, who gave his eye for wisdom; Frigga, who was so gifted with foresight; and Loki, who needed nothing more than being himself; Sigyn could say with certainty that Freyja was the most intelligent being in all of Asgard, and not a soul knew it but the three others who ranked above her.

Sigyn and Loki developed something of a tradition around her lessons. When Sigyn finished lessons with Frigga or Idunna, she would accompany her mentor to the royal table for supper before retreating with a stacked tray to Loki's chambers. After lessons with Freyja, Sigyn would retreat to her room and relax until Loki called a servant to bring them both a meal.

It bonded the two of them, slowly but surely.

On days Sigyn brought Loki food she would inform him of all he missed at table that might be of interest to him. He would return her observations with commentary on any of his work that he knew would pique her interest.

When Loki called for meals, they would instead spend their time analyzing their fellow palace residents. Freyja was a particularly favorite topic. Loki, it turned out, held her in rather high esteem. They spent hours comparing the injustice of Freyja being valued for her looks over her mind with the absurdity, or at least what Loki considered an absurdity, of the women of Asgard believing Thor to be a thought-provoking specimen, when in fact his and Freyja's roles were quite thoroughly reversed.

Sigyn still knew none of Loki's secrets, and she pressed him for none of them. Though she could see, by the end of the month, that he was starting to open up, at least in his personality. He wasn't so guarded with his work or his opinions. He had no qualms about teasing his brother or his warrior friends in front of her. His strained relationship with his father was no longer something he was ashamed of, and he made a point to reciprocate pleasantries without any sense of animosity or aggravation.

"I believe, I've done all I can." When the words left Freyja's house one night as she walked Sigyn back to the room she shared with Loki, Sigyn had to draw on all of her lessons from Freyja on composure not to simply rush into the chambers and collapse on her bed.

"Thank you for your assistance, Lady Freyja," Sigyn bowed her head with what she hoped was a gracious smile. "Your help has been enlightening; I greatly appreciate it."

Freyja's eyebrow cocked, and for the first time, Sigyn saw her composure crack as the goddess of beauty lifted her lips into a vicious smirk. "No, no you don't. Final lesson: you're a terrible liar. Get Loki to help you fix that."

"I heard my name, Lady."

"You did indeed," Freyja didn't miss a step as she turned to face Loki.

Loki strolled leisurely up to the pair of goddesses at his door, a book tucked casually under one arm. "To what does my name owe the pleasure of falling from your lips?"

"Friendly advice for your mate to take," Freyja waved a hand to the silent Sigyn who was watching the exchange with her back pressed into Loki's chamber door.

"And how might this advice involve me?" Loki's smile was light and teasing, but Sigyn thought it was likely just as practiced as his gracious, well-mannered expression.

Freyja met it head on with a smile of her own, "By teaching her to lie, of course. Your mate is terribly bad at it. Her loyalty no doubt, it's a virtue far too dependent on honesty. I dare say she couldn't even fool Thor."

"Hm," Loki mused as he eyed over Sigyn curiously. "Yes, I think you may be right. This is something we will need to work on, though it will have to wait for a later date."

"It will?" Sigyn cut in.

"Unfortunately it will. We have plans this evening."

* * *

"Mother!" Sigyn flung herself into her mother's arms the second the door was opened.

"My sweet!" A hand buried in Sigyn's hair and drew her tight into her mother's shoulder. "Oh, I've missed you."

Loki stood quietly behind the mother and daughter during the reunion. It was against every courtly protocol for Sigyn to greet her mother before introducing the Prince of Asgard, particularly in such an effusive way right in front of him, but Loki said nothing. Usually, he placed a high value on formality, but he could allow Sigyn this. The Goddess of Loyalty, forced to go a month without seeing her family to learn the ways of life of a man she had no choice in accompanying, deserved a little leeway.

"Is that Sigyn?" A high-pitched voice screeched from somewhere deep inside the home.

"Yes! Come say hello!" Sigyn's mother called back into the house without releasing her daughter from her arms.

Loki's ears picked up the sound of several pairs of feet before the doorway became crowded with bodies, all launching themselves at his soulmate. She disappeared behind a wall of young Asgardian bodies, surrounded by the arms of those she loved.

Loki couldn't deny his twinge of jealousy. Even as a child, he couldn't remember Thor or Odin ever embracing him the way Sigyn's family embraced her. Even now, Frigga often held him, hugged him, comforted him; but it was never with this enthusiasm. She was never so desperate to see Loki again that she broke her polished facade to take him in her arms. She never shouted with joy at his return from an extensive battle or trade. This feeling was one Loki would never know.

"My sweet Sigyn," Loki knew Delling's face well. The man was by no means of Loki's station, but Delling was a man whose presence always demanded attention when he arrived at court.

"Father," Sigyn managed to divest herself from her siblings to wrap her arms, however briefly, around her father's neck. "I missed you."

"And we have missed you," Delling pulled his daughter close then let her go. "However, that is no excuse to ignore a guest."

Sigyn whipped around to face Loki in an instant, her face slightly aghast. "Of course, forgive me."

"Nothing to forgive," Loki waved her apology away with a casual hand. "It's always a pleasure to bring such joy."

Sigyn returned to Loki's side, picture of the dignity she so lacked a moment before. "Mother, Father," Her siblings stepped away so their parents could stand before him, "I have the honor of introducing Prince Loki, God of Magic, and Protector of the Realms." Her parents both bowed deeply. "My prince, it would be an honor to introduce you to my father, Delling, Lord of the Sunrise, and my mother, Dysis, Lady of Sunset."

Being so far above their station, Loki was not required to return the bow, but he thought it appropriate to show a sign of respect and bent low at his waist. "The honor is mine. Sigyn speaks most highly of you."

"As she does you. Her letters have been nothing but complimentary," Dysis smiled warmly and stepped aside. "Please, you are both welcome to join us. I am sure Sigyn's siblings would love the opportunity to meet you."

Loki gestured for Sigyn to lead the way as he followed her inside, ducking under the low door frame. "I am sure you are right. She speaks of nothing else."

"I was just beginning to cook our evening meal. If it is no offense, I will leave you in Sigyn's capable hands."

"No offense at all," Loki nodded to Dysis and Delling as the pair bowed again and exited in the direction he assumed was the kitchen.

Loki was left in the minimal entrance hall with Sigyn, surrounded by children. All eyes were on him, and if not for his legendary composure, he was sure to have been shifting with discomfort.

Sigyn left his side to stand behind a pair of her brothers. "Loki, these are my brothers Osmond and Ivar." She touched each boys' shoulder as she said their names, and both bowed. Osmond was clearly the oldest of them all and bulkier in build than his brother, though Ivar certainly made up for it in height, standing nearly a head taller than the older boy.

"This is my sister Agda, and the babe is our newest addition, Aaren." Agda, Sigyn's eldest sister, held a newborn against her chest. It would have been proper for her to bow, but with the child in her arms, she gave a meager attempt at a curtsy and nothing more.

Loki bowed his head in respect, regardless.

"This, little one, is Eira," Sigyn patted the head of a young girl, who was peaking out at Loki from behind Agda's skirts.

"Hello, my lady," Loki hoped his smile was as encouraging as he meant it to be, but he couldn't be sure. Children had never been something he had much experience with.

"My prince," Eira's voice was quiet and delicate, matching the young girl. Clearly not knowing to bow, she copied the awkward curtsy of her older sister, to the amused smiles of Loki and her siblings.

"This is Dagmar," Sigyn moved on to the next sister, an older girl who clearly fell somewhere between Osmund and Ivar in age. She bowed to Loki, a little deeper than necessary, but he made no comment on it, save a nod of acknowledgment.

"And these are the twins," Sigyn ended standing between two identical boys. "Torgier," one slightly more muscular than the other bowed to the prince, "And Narfi."

The one Sigyn sent the letter to. Loki had never met any of her siblings, but he was sure that even without names, he could have picked Narfi out of the crowd. The other boys were warriors, through and through. Narfi was subtler, more reserved. His bow had a grace the rest of Sigyn's family simply couldn't manage. Standing next to his twin, they reminded Loki of himself and Thor.

"It is a pleasure to meet you all." He addressed the group.

"You will be joining us for our meal; won't you?" Loki turned to see Delling watching the final exchange.

Loki's eyes flitted to Sigyn and the hope in her expression. He had work to do that night; she knew this. He could always leave her here and send a messenger to return with her at a later time. Yet somehow, he knew the hope wasn't just that she would be allowed to stay; she had already assumed she would be able to. Loki did very little to impede her daily life.

No, the hope was that he would remain. He wasn't sure why she wanted such a thing: whether it was purely for his own health by ensuring he ate or whether she genuinely wanted him to know her family. Either way, he didn't want to deny her, not after her month of studying with the goddesses, of bringing him meals, of tolerating his conversational whims and the distant at which he kept her.

"I suppose," Loki hesitated for a moment before he gave in, "we can spare the time."

Loki had known exactly what to expect from sharing a meal with Sigyn's family.

Poor attempts at formality in his presence. Conversation dominated by discussion of various combat training. Obscene amounts of food for the 'warriors' of the family. A mother reprimanding her daughter's for any misstep in etiquette.

Loki knew exactly what to expect, but it wasn't this.

The formality they had attempted in the hall was completely set aside. Yes, they allowed him first share of the meal and spoke to him with a greater respect than each other, but there was no deference or capitulation as he anticipated.

Delling led the conversation. He began with Osmond, speaking of his daily lessons with the sword, as Loki expected. He continued down the line with Ivar's bow and Torgier's day at sea, but Loki was shocked when the whole table showed the same attention to Narfi's discussion of his lessons.

"I mean, for a tutor, the man is poorly versed in the ways of other realms. He has a thorough understanding of Asgard and Vanaheim, for obvious reasons. He could certainly get by in a discussion of Nidavellir, but he lacks any deeper understanding of the other realms or worlds beyond."

"Such a shame," Delling nodded in understanding. "Ullr thought highly of the man. Perhaps other arrangements can be made."

"Ullr?" Loki didn't mean to interrupt, but he was rather well versed on the man, being a younger brother of Volstagg.

"Yes, my prince," Delling nodded in Narf's direction, "He recommended Narfi's tutor to us as one who did well by his own sons."

Loki nodded thoughtfully and turned his eyes back down to the mutton before him. "Yes, I believe I've met this tutor. He retired from the King's council some time ago." Loki made no mention of the state in which the man retired: forced to leave to make room for Loki. "He was a bright man once, but his light has dimmed over time."

"Would you have a suggestion, Prince Loki?" Narfi addressed him directly.

Loki deferred his attention to Sigyn on his right hand side, who like her siblings was listening quietly. It had been over a month ago now, but Loki wondered if she remembered the first night she brought him food, the night he said he would help the young boy. He was sure she would, but he knew she wouldn't hold him to his words unless he wished to be. "I may know a solution."

"Your recommendation would be greatly appreciated," Delling urged him, and Loki was truly moved by the man. His father had never made such attempts to help him in anything that did not meet his immediate interest or approval, yet here Delling was, asking a prince to help his son in something he had no clue about.

Loki picked at his food, his usual smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. "Members of the King's council generally undertake an apprentice. All of the positions are filled at the moment, except my own. I had no interest in filling the post, for the sake of propriety, with some highborn son who would simply get in my way." Loki turned his eyes on Narfi, expression suddenly quite serious. "If you're willing to learn and do the work, I could offer it to you. A seat in Council Meetings surrounded by the King's most trusted advisors would serve you better than any tutor ever could."

Tears pricked the corners of the young man's eyes as Loki spoke. A wide smile spread across his face, and Loki was sure if a table did not separate them, Narfi would have jumped to embrace him.

The table was filled with claps and cheers and smiles, and not the kind Loki's father and brother faked at their dinners when he had good news. Genuine approval, genuine happiness, genuine excitement for Narfi filled every face at the table, from the older Delling to the little Eira. Even his warlike brothers were honestly pleased for him.

Torgier, his twin, clapped Narfi on the back and shook him heartily. "Looks like we'll be seeing less of you brother. How will we cope without your brains to guide our discussion!"

Had this been why Frigga gave Loki Sigyn? To show him the family he never had. To show him somewhere he could belong.

Sigyn's hand reached out and touched his knee, tenderly, drawing his attention. "Thank you." Her smile wasn't as wide-eyed and extatic as her siblings. It was sympathetic, understanding. She had been to suppers with his family. She knew the difference between their families, the difference between her brother and Loki. She knew what Loki had had to endure. She knew what it meant for him to bring her brother in.

Loki's hand slipped under the table and held hers for the rest of the meal. He didn't let go as they said their goodbyes or as they rode back to the palace. He only released his grip when they slipped under the golden gates, when they were officially back in his family's home.

"You have a beautiful family," Loki's words came out under his breath as he and Sigyn stepped back into chambers.

Sigyn heard the crack in his voice. For the first time, she heard his genuine emotion, and it was a horrible, broken thing. Her hand reached out slowly to avoid startling him and settled on the back of Loki's shoulder. "Loki," she called gently, waiting patiently until he turned to face her. "We may have only just met. You may not know me well, or know them at all; but like it or not, you're one of us now. They're your family too."


	3. Chapter Three: Peace

Sigyn stood, arm-in-arm with Freyja, at the entrance to Asgard's feasting hall. She wasn't sure if her fears should be heightened or crushed by walking with Freyja. There was the advantage that Freyja unintentionally drew a great deal of attention. No eyes, save perhaps Sigyn's family, would be on her. The disadvantage was the obvious. How did anyone compare when walking next to the Goddess of Beauty herself.

"Relax." What should have been a comforting word came out as an order from Freyja. "Your family is here, and you will only be sat beside them, Loki, and myself.

"I still have to get to the seat." Sigyn murmured to herself more than her companion.

Freyja rolled her eyes. "You think I would let you fall? You're liable to take me down with you if you do, and I simply wouldn't allow for that."

"How reassuring."

Freyja nodded to the guards, and the pair of men pushed the doors open for their entrance.

Asgard's feasting hall was the largest room in the palace. It had the entire third floor dedicated just for it and the adjoining kitchen. Because of its cumbersome size, they reserved its use only for the most special occasions, and the anniversary of Odin and Frigga's marriage was one of those. It was used to honor the goddess of marriage, and all she had done for her people. The Aesir did not need an excuse for a feast, but the day marked a particularly grand celebration, focused on soulmates.

It was a massive affair, and the benches brought in could seat the entire noble court of Asgard at three long tables running the entire length of the room.

The hall was truly transformed. Odin's gold sharing space with Frigga's royal blue to commemorate their long lasting union. The walls on either side were decked in beautiful tapestries depicting various scenes of soulmates together to show the love Frigga had brought the Aesir.

Odin sat at the head of the center table, under a glowing illustration of himself and Frigga, embracing each other with the palace balcony overlooking Asgard as the backdrop. They shared a loving gaze with their foreheads pressed against each other, like no one in the world was watching. It was a beautiful moment of weakness for a usually harsh man.

Heading the table on Odin's right hand was Thor. His banner was similarly majestic, but far more mysterious. The backdrop was a swaying grassy field. Thor was turned into the hall, his broad, boyish grin looking down on an unknown woman at his side. She was facing away, her body concealed from the hall by a long plaited braid and iridescent blue dress. The shifting light changed the color of the woman's hair from blonde to red to brown to black, as if the strands could not yet decide what color they should be.

To Odin's left, disorientingly, Sigyn saw herself. Hung from the rafters, was a banner of her and Loki in a terribly recognizable position. The background was unmistakably Loki's chambers with its shelves and books covering every inch of the frame. The image was from the side, no doubt from the vantage point of one of their bedchamber doorways. Sigyn's lounge stood out at the forefront, her body stretched across it far more gracefully than she had ever managed in life. Her eyes stared in the direction of the ceiling, but they appeared to be closed, relaxing or sleeping as she was often known to do in that very spot. Behind her was Loki, his lounge appearing far closer to hers in the artwork than in his rooms. He sat upright, legs bent in front of him with a book propped against his knees. One hand turned a page while the other reached across the too close space to hold one of Sigyn's hands that rested on her stomach, the central focus of the piece.

"That," Sigyn stuttered out. "That is not us."

Freyja sighed, ignoring her commentary. "Come now." Freyja ushered her with quick steps down the aisle towards Loki's table. "Quickly. We are already late."

It was true. Their arrival wasn't so late as to disturb the peace, but they certainly could not linger. Their seats were at the head of the room. Sigyn at Loki's right hand with Freyja on her other side.

"Quite close, Sigyn," Sigyn heard her mother rebuke as she came to her seat.

It had taken some intervention on Loki's part for Odin and Frigga to allow her family so near the head of the table. Her parents had been quite kind to Loki every time he had accompanied her on her visits, so Loki didn't mind the trouble much. Narfi, as his apprentice, was required to sit on Loki's left side, across from his sister, either way. Keeping their group together on such a momentous day was an easily won debate.

"Forgive me, Mother." Sigyn addressed her quickly before turning on Loki. "Where did the banner come from?"

Loki rolled his eyes over to Odin's table. "My mother thought it would be a pleasant idea. She originally had us kissing, but I refused such exaggerations. If she'd shown me her new creation, I would have had you approve it before it went up, but I saw it when I came in, same as you."

"Oh, thank you." Sigyn wasn't sure she needed to thank him for sparing them both the humiliating questions Frigga's banner would have brought them, but she thanked him nonetheless.

"You know she kept it; don't you?"

"What." Loki's tone was deadly, eyes narrowing in on Freyja's smirk.

"She was in my room this morning," Freyja touched Sigyn's arm, "just before you came, in fact. She saw no point in remaking it when she could use it in years to come. The original banner is rolled up somewhere in the palace vaults."

When she met Loki's gaze, Sigyn was relieved she wasn't the only one going pink.

Loki turned to Narfi and quickly absorbed himself in the discussion they'd been having before Sigyn arrived. She caught bits and pieces that sounded as though they were about worshippers on Midgard, but Dagmar and Agda on Freyja's other side quickly pulled both goddesses into a discussion on Osmund's approaching coming-of-age ceremony.

Sigyn flitted between amusing Aaren in her father's lap to chatting with Eira about horseback riding to listening in on whatever Dagmar had so enraptured Freyja with at that moment.

She didn't even touch her food before the final course was carried away from her for good.

The sound of a scraping chair was what finally awoke her from Eira's animated comparison of two ponies she'd ridden named Modi and Magni.

All eyes went up as the All-Father stood. With a clap, the guards lining the room rushed forward to carry out the long tables in sections with a military precision. Sigyn imagined that since the Great Peace began in Asgard, this was the only use the palace had for their particular skills. "Now, for the dance."

The Aesir all stood, and the benches were swept from under them by another set of guards, pushing the seats back against the walls for those who didn't wish to join the festivities.

"May I have this dance, my lady?" Loki bowed before Sigyn and held out his hand expectantly.

"Am I allowed to refuse?" She teased him but accepted his grip nonetheless.

Loki led her out to the dance floor where a mass was assembling. "I think not. It's traditional all soulmates take the first dance." He kept her to the edge of the group, for which Sigyn was relieved.

"And how long do we have to stay before I run off to the kitchens for something to eat?"

That drew Loki's infamous smirk. It wasn't usual that Sigyn saw it. He most often used it coupled with a look of condescension. It was a pairing reserved for those advisors on the King's Council who he found most agitated him with their stupidity. When that wasn't the case, it was usually only employed as part of his mask. A look given to those who lacked his trust, caught him off guard, or needed to be deceived. Sigyn was none of those to Loki. She saw it only on the rarest occasion when he was genuinely having fun.

"My dear, if you wanted to sneak away, you should have just asked." He leaned in dramatically, as though telling her a great secret. "It happens to be my specialty."

Then Sigyn felt the odd sensation of something tugging at her waist. It felt like an arm wrapped around her, dragging her back. She tried to hold onto Loki's hands but couldn't seem to get a grip, even though she could see she was holding them; she could feel herself beginning to panic. Loki seemed oblivious, preparing himself to dance. He slipped through her fingers, and Sigyn tried to kick out at whatever was grabbing her.

"Enough of that," a cool voice whispered against her ear.

"Loki?" She could see him moving away in front of her, but his voice was coming from behind.

Loki's long fingers clamped over her mouth. "Not till we're outside."

Sigyn didn't resist as he drew her to the doors of the hall, dodging the milling attendants who didn't seem to notice their movement.

"Close your eyes," His voice whispered again.

Sigyn did as she was told. In a moment, a pressure pushed in hard on her chest until it ached to breath, but as quickly as it came it went.

"You can open your eyes," Loki spoke, this time at full volume.

Sigyn was outside in the deserted guards from before had gone, and the heavy doors were still firmly closed. "What.."

Loki was prepared with his answer before she even finished the question. "I cloned our pair dancing and concealed us to the door. That weight you felt on you was my pushing you through the metal of the door, so I didn't have to open that monstrous thing." He paused for a second, eyes shifting to his feet. "It seemed the easiest way to get us away."

Sigyn slowly smiled only for it to turn into outright laughter. She hadn't actually expected he would make their escape, but she was truly relieved. "Thank you, Loki." Loki awkwardly patted her back as the young goddess pulled him tight against her.

She had been living in his rooms for several months now, but they hadn't touched so intimately before, nor so friendly. She was a deeply loving person, and Loki had caught her on more than one occasion stopping herself from touching or embracing him in ways she thought would cause him discomfort. Even with such build-up as warning, he was caught off guard by the gesture.

It had been years since anyone hugged him. So long, he didn't even want to count.

"Now," Sigyn pulled back with a grin, "where can we get something to eat?"

* * *

Six years after Sigyn moved into his chambers, Loki was in for the fight of his life, and it wasn't with the warrior he was sparing against.

Loki did not frequent the training grounds, but Hogun had asked to spare with him that day. The Warriors Three helped put down an uprising in Alfheim, and Hogun had fallen in battle at the hands of a young Light Elf wielding dual knives, Loki's weapon of choice. Only Sif's assistance had saved Hogun, but it had clearly bothered the unshakeable man enough for him to ask for Loki's help in training.

Loki was just about to defeat the warrior for the second time, when a cry stopped his blade a hair shy of passing Hogun's defenses.

Sheer terror pierced the air of the training grounds, and all fighting ceased. Following the noise, all eyes in the arena saw as a body slumped against the bales of hay separating combat and archery.

"Send for Eir!" Thor shouted over his shoulder as he charged forward, hurtling the makeshift barrier with a single bound.

Loki and Hogun abandoned their battle to push their way through the crowd forming at the other end of the grounds.

Thor stood inside the archery pit, looking down over the body of a young man or at least what was left of him. His face and most of his chest were caved in by some powerful force, leaving nothing but an unrecognizable mass of broken bone and torn flesh. Blood gushed out without any means of halting, pooling beneath Thor's feet and soaking into the dirt.

"What happened, Thor?" Loki bent down to see if there was any point in summoning healers. He placed a hand above where he thought the mouth would be, though, in truth, it was hard to tell. Air still rushed out over his fingers in short, shallow bursts. The man was alive, but only just. Even if the healers arrived, he knew it wouldn't be in time. This man had seconds, not minutes.

"I called back Mjolnir to me," Thor explained waving a hand helplessly at the ground, "and the boy stepped in the way."

The boy, as Thor referred to him, was still behind his distance line. He was still taking shots, not moving at all. Loki doubted, severely, that the man stepped in front of anything. Far more likely that Thor called his hammer back to him from some unknown place without thought for the damage he may cause.

"He will not…"

"Ivar!"

Loki knew that voice, and his head jerked up to see Sigyn's eldest brother, Osmund, barreling through the crowd with Torgier in tow. Osmund shoved Fandral, standing at the front of the onlookers, out of his way without a care in the world to the consequences.

"Loki, is it…" Torgier's demand died on his lips when he saw the body at the princes' feet.

Loki didn't need to ask if it was Ivar. The horror on their faces told Loki it was his mate's brother. This was one of Thor's mistakes he simply couldn't leave his brother to fix for himself.

"Sif," Loki barked out, turning to the woman at Thor's side. "Sigyn is in Freyja's chambers. Go get both of them and bring them to Eir's." His voice left no room to question his command, and for once, the woman didn't. With a bow, Sif handed the waiting Volstagg her sword and darted back towards the palace.

"Thor, the boy has no time." Loki looked up at his brother. "I can keep him alive for a little longer, but I need Eir while we wait for the other healers."

Thor understood the unspoken request and grabbed his hammer where it had fallen near Ivar's side. Swinging it round, he flew off the ground.

"Someone give me a knife."

Osmund ripped one from his belt and shoved it at the prince.

Loki peeled back the layers of tunic, now almost impossible to differentiate from Ivar's own skin, and tossed the knife aside. Palms hovering just above Ivar's bare chest, Loki began to chant.

Lying there in the dirt, Loki could do nothing to fix the dent in Ivar's chest, but he could stave off the bleeding, maybe even reverse the flow. He could keep Ivar alive long enough to give him a fighting chance.

The words flowed from him in a continuous litany. Without tone or inflection, to the untrained ear they ran together as one unending sound with only Loki's breaths breaking apart the hum of noise.

Loki saw nothing, heard nothing as he chanted. Once Loki started he could not stop. Until his wounds were healed, Ivar's life was dependent on Loki, tied to Loki. The spell was all or nothing. A mistake didn't just resume the bleeding; it undid what the spell had already done. If he stopped, misplaced a word, raised his pitch, broke his tone, looked away, even if Loki blinked, Ivar was gone.

Nothing broke Loki's concentration as he waited, desperately waited, for help to come. It was a battle. A man's life was at stake, and the responsibility was entirely in his hands.

Loki was only aware of Eir's arrival when he felt a firm hand lifting him to his feet as Ivar rose from the ground. Two pairs of hands were in Loki's view carrying the body, but he could not turn to see who they belonged to or who's hand was guiding him.

Whether it was Eir's doing or simply common sense, great care was taken that no one came into Loki's field of vision. Not as they walked through the streets, as they twisted and turned through the palace, not even as they laid Ivar down on a healing table.

A hand helped him to a chair at the end of the table, and Loki's chants were joined by those of the healers. Their voices overlayed onto his, weaving between his words the spells to heal Ivar's wounds.

Hours flew by, maybe days; Loki wasn't sure. It was tireless work. The ache in Loki's neck was the only measure he had of how much time had passed. Anything more would have been too much of a distraction.

He waited patiently at the end of the bed as he saw Ivar's chest begin to rise, begin to heal. His face took shape again before Loki's eyes, and Loki finally recognized the young archer he'd shared so many family meals with over the past few years. The cuts and scrapes disappeared, and the gaping wounds began to heal. Still, nothing pulled Loki away from his task at hand.

It was not until Loki saw a hand waving in front of his face that his concentration began to waver. It moved hastily in front of his vision, clearly trying to draw his attention. Loki continued to chant, continued to watch Ivar just in case, but he allowed one moment for his hearing to hone back into the room around him.

"Loki, we are done. He is healed, and now he must rest."

The words were Eir's. The only ones Loki would trust to give him such news.

His voice seemed to register her implication before his mind did; because the second they were spoken, his voice gave out with a hoarse cry of pain. Collapsing back into the chair someone had set him in, Loki finally let his eyes fall closed. How long had he gone without so much as blinking? It must have been some significant amount of time. Exhaustion would overcome him any moment. There was no pain, but he was physically and magically drained.

Hogun could have certainly beat him then. If Thor had come and even laid Mjolnir as gently as he could on Loki's chest, Loki was sure his muscles and bones would not support the weight, and he would end up exactly where Ivar laid.

"He'll live." Eir continued speaking once she saw Loki had registered her message, "You have worked a miracle today, Loki. This will be the first, the only man to ever survive such a blow from Mjolnir. Who is he?"

"A brother to me," Loki only managed to croak out in a whimper, sounding like a man dying of thirst.

"There is a group outside to see you and the boy. His family, I believe. They want to wait with him. I won't be able to send them away, but I will get help to move you to another room." Loki heard the door open and close, but he couldn't bother with the energy to respond before Eir left.

It was only a moment before the door swung open again with a loud rush of feet.

"How is he?" "How are they?" "What happened?" "Will he live?" "When will he wake?"

Questions bombarded the air around him, but Loki couldn't tell who they were meant for. They came out so fast that he couldn't catch them all. Dozens filled the air in seconds. His voice would not cooperate, and his eyes would not open. Not that he needed his eyes to know who asked. He couldn't catch the words themselves, but he knew the voices well.

There was one voice missing from the initial onslaught.

"Quiet, please," Eir's tone was kind but commanding. "They need their rest. I will answer your questions later. You may wait, but you must do so quietly."

The noise trailed off to a soft humm in background. People talking quietly amongst themselves.

"Loki," a soft hand touched his face.

Loki groaned with the effort it took to force his eyes open to look at her.

Sigyn knelt at eye level beside the chair he was strewn across. Her fingers were warm and gentle as they cradled his cheek. They grounded him to the room in a way he thought he was too tired to feel.

She looked as exhausted as he felt. Her eyes watered; delicate skin rubbed raw around their rim. Her face drained of its usual blush of color. Adding her tousled hair, Loki thought Sigyn looked like she'd lived through the same torturous misery that he'd just experienced.

She must have been waiting for news outside the entire time. Loki doubted she would have left her family's side at all during such a time.

Sigyn pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. "Thank you," she murmured against his skin.

Loki's eyes fell closed with her words, and he only remained conscious long enough to hear her say. "Torgier, Narfi, come help me."

* * *

Loki woke up some time later in his own bed. He felt refreshed, a clue to exactly how long he'd been asleep.

Attempting to sit up drew out a long huff of pain from his lips. "Water." He ground out the reminder to himself of his body's most pressing need.

"Right here."

Her voice caught him off guard this time, and Loki's jumped back. At least he tried. He was well rested, but his body still felt weak from over-exertion. Each muscle in his back protested his sudden shift and dragged him back down to where he had lain.

Sigyn was sitting delicately on the end of his bed. Her bare feet swung off the side, trailing nothing but air in their wake. Her usual silk skirts were gone, replaced instead by a short nightdress that just barely brushed the tops of her knees.

It was the most open and exposed Loki had ever seen her, in more ways than one. Sigyn was no secret keeper of the palace. Her intentions, while always noble and pure, were easy for any skilled liar to decipher, but she usually managed to conceal her emotions well enough. Rather, she usually managed to conceal her emotions well enough from anyone who was not known as the God of Lies. With enough effort, Loki could find the truth behind anyone's mask. There on his bed, though, Loki didn't even have to try.

Her eyes, in the dim glow of his room, spoke volumes of her feelings and intentions. Sigyn was tired; she was in pain; she was distraught. It was written in her very skin, her stance, her expression. Sigyn was suffering.

She held up a glass of water as though that would explain why she was on his bed. "I brought you this." Slipping off the sheets, Sigyn came up to stand at his side.

Loki accepted her help as she lifted the cup to his lips and gently poured its contents down his throat. He took it all in greedy gulps. "Thank you," he said once it was drained empty, voice somewhat returned by the liquid soothing his throat.

"You're welcome." She took a step back, awkward as she did not know where to stand or what to do.

"Why are you here?" Loki tried to keep a kind tone.

Sigyn's eyes fell to her feet. "I hadn't left the healing rooms since you sent Sif to find me. Father thought it would be best, once we knew Ivar would live, that I came back here."

"So why aren't you resting?"

"First, I waited for you. The healers said the magic would leave you drained, so I returned you here. After that, I…" A breath caught in her throat. "I'm not sure."

Loki forced his protesting muscles to push his body upright and hold him there. "How is your brother? Has there been word?"

"Not since yesterday, they said that his body had begun to recover on its own."

"Yesterday?" Loki looked around his room, hoping for some indication of how much time had passed. There was nothing. His desk was empty of new papers, and the curtains had been drawn to darken his windows. "What day is it?"

"After the training ground, you were in the healing room for two days without stop. You've been asleep for four since then." Sigyn explained.

Loki was shocked. "And you haven't rested since Sif came for you?"

"How can I?" Sigyn's back turned on Loki. "Eir thinks Ivar may never walk again, and she feared you would be damaged by the effort it took to spare his life."

"If you can't rest without knowing, then you should be with your brother," Loki tried to reason. Better that she be there with him than here worrying herself to an early death.

Sigyn shook her head in an immediate dismissal. "My siblings are taking turns with him, so they may all sleep. Eira and Torgier are with him now. If anything happens, Torgier will run for Father; and Eira will come here." She turned back to face Loki with a desperate expression. "Besides that, I couldn't leave you here alone. Not after everything you've done."

Alone. Sigyn couldn't ask her family to leave Ivar, but she couldn't leave Loki. Loki could believe that he was left alone for so long, but had she been alone as he slept the whole time? Had Frigga truly not come to wait with her? Had Thor not come to apologize for her trauma he caused? Had Odin not made his obligatory appearance with her at his son's side?

Sigyn looked alone. There was a panic to the way she shifted weight between her feet. Her arms were wrapped around herself, holding her the way any comforting embrace would. It didn't appear she'd taken care of herself at all besides changing her clothes. She was alone, and she was desperate not to be.

"If you cannot rest your eyes, and you won't leave me here for your family, then you should at least join me." Loki rested a hand atop his sheets. "No one should be left with just their thoughts in a time like this."

Sigyn hesitated for several moments, contemplating the idea before she finally conceded that Loki would never offer such a thing unless he meant for it to be accepted. Her feet carried her body and left her mind behind. She crawled up the end of the bed to be on the side Loki had gestured her to take, and by the time she reached his pillows her consciousness was gone.

Loki looked fondly down at her and brushed the hair out of her face. She'd needed sleep almost as much as Loki but denied herself to be there for him when no one else was.

"Goddess of Loyalty indeed," Loki muttered to himself, slipping back under his sheets. He felt fine after his days of sleep, but he could use longer. His eyes fluttered closed.

The next time they opened he was the one cradling Sigyn tight against his side. It was the first time he'd ever been the one to hold her, and she'd been subconsciously grateful for it as she peacefully dozed away on his shoulder.

* * *

It took a decade for Loki to fall in love with Sigyn. It took a second decade for him to admit that to himself. Then a third before he admitted it to her.

Sigyn knew she loved Loki even before Ivar's accident, but she waited patiently for him to realize for himself. Thirty years wasn't too long to wait when blessed with immortality, but Sigyn would have waited a hundred times that for Loki.

He deserved as much.

"Sigyn," Loki called out as he entered their chambers. "Remind me why I have to go and fetch books from my mother's library once a week?"

"Because you so kindly sacrificed one of your bookshelves for me to use for my things." Sigyn pushed off the lounge and came to take the top few books off the enormous stack in Loki's arms. "Which I suppose I should thank you for again, since you're mentioning it."

"That would be wise," Loki grumbled, depositing the remainder on his table.

Sigyn set the books aside, leisurely draping her arms around Loki's neck. "Thank you for this great kindness you have bestowed on me, my Prince. How ever shall I repay for your patronage?" She stepped into him, chest-to-chest. With a touch as light as a feather, Sigyn trailed her lips along his jawline.

Loki sighed and let his eyes fall closed as the tension slowly eased from his body. "I can think of a few ways, my love." His arms slid around her waist, pulling her ever tighter against him. "Though, having you ever in my debt is proving incredibly useful at the moment."

Sigyn laughed and buried her head in his neck, hiding the redness that was rushing over her cheeks. "I hardly think a shelf is worthy of my unending service."

"I have other gifts that would be." Loki said with finality.

His fingers worked their way into her hair and were gently massaging her scalp. Sigyn let her head lull back into his palms, partly out of the sensation but mostly to look into his eyes. "If these gifts you speak of are your fingers, I regret to inform you I've already experienced them free of charge."

"My princess, you pay me back for them with every day that I get to wake up beside you." His words held a teasing lilt, but his eyes spoke volumes of how much he truly meant them.

Sigyn smiled with a roll of her eyes. "Your silver tongue fails you Loki; for I am no princess."

"Would you like to be?"

The room went deathly quiet, and the smile fell from Sigyn's lips.

Sigyn and Loki had known they were mates for fifty years and had been together for the last twenty of that. Neither of them had thought of mentioning marriage before. Some thought it was Loki's fear of commitment, but in truth it just wasn't something that had come up. They didn't need it. Sigyn was the Goddess of Loyalty, and Loki was unflinchingly loyal to her.

Until that moment, the closest they came to addressing their lack of union was in their names for each other. Within the walls of their shared chambers, Sigyn only ever referred to Loki as 'my prince'. It was an affectionate term of endearment she had been slowly reclaiming from the petty lords of Asgard who looked down their noses at her mate as they called him their prince. On her tongue, the name always brought a smile to Loki's lips as he returned it without fail by whispering to her, 'my love'.

"My princess," Loki let his arms slide from her waist only long enough to grab her hands in his. He slowly sank to the floor, on both knees at her feet. "Do me the honor of being my bride. I will give you every title, every land, every magic I command; and I will still be in your debt for the blessing of spending an eternity at your side." He kissed first her right hand then her left, whispering against each, "Be mine."

Tears pricked the corner of her eyes, and Sigyn smiled down on the god at her feet. "I will grant you this, but I have a condition."

"Name it, and it shall be done." Loki said without hesitation. He would have done anything for her, and he was used to receiving love in return coming with strings attached.

Sigyn lowered to her knees beside Loki, slipping from his grasp to cup his face in her hands. "Don't call me princess. Not here, not in our home. I want to marry you because I love you, not because you can make me royalty. I earned my name as your 'love', and that's the name I want to keep, not the ones being handed to me."

She was looking Loki in the eyes, but it wasn't until she felt the wetness touch the tips of her fingers that Sigyn realized he was crying.

"You could ask me for anything now, and I would give it to you. You could ask for the Nine Realms, and I would personally declare war on all of Asgard itself to see it so." Loki choked out.

Sigyn smiled and moved a hand over his heart, flattening it against his chest. "The war for your heart is already won, and that's the only war worth waging to me."

* * *

Their wedding was a controversial affair. Not in its occurence. In that regard, most of Asgard was surprised it hadn't happened sooner. Rather, it was controversial in its ceremony.

They should have been married in the throne room, at Odin's feet, with all of Asgard's nobility in attendance. The Aesir should have looked upon them joining hands, with thunderous applause and polite cheers. Baldur should have made his return journey to Asgard to bow and kiss Loki's feet. Freyja should have led a delegation of Vanir royalty, flanked by the princes of Alfheim and the master masons of Nidavellir.

The palace should have been decked with Loki's green, Frigga's banner from all those years ago, the one that had never seen the light of day, the one of them kissing, hanging from the palace balcony for all the people to see as they arrived for the wedding.

The feasting hall should have been filled with the latest and greatest the Nine Realms had to offer. There should have been at least fifteen courses of the finest food to touch their lips since the wedding of Odin himself: wine flowing unending through the halls, peels of laughter through the air with smiles all around.

It should have taken years, a decade even, of planning to assemble the greatest members, food, decor, vows, and clothing the Nine Realms had to offer.

That was what their wedding should have been.

Instead, two months after Loki fell at her feet, Sigyn stood at the end of the docks where she grew up.

The beach had been cleared of its usual fish and boats to make room. Not for highborn nobility or pretentious royalty, but for the citizens.

Sigyn and Loki had put out the call just days before they said their vows. "Any citizen of Asgard who wished to see the wedding of their prince, the God of Magic, to his lady, the Goddess of Loyalty, was welcome to join them at the seaside at dawn in three days time." And the crowds had come by the thousands. They stretched the beach in either direction as far as the eye could see, the furthest appearing only as dots against the horizon.

Space had to be roped off by palace guards at the base of the dock for those closest to Sigyn and Loki, and with the crowds pushing in to hear, it had been hard to maintain.

Odin's arrival ended the tussle for a view. The King and the Crown Prince stood on a golden sheet they had brought for the occasion, just right of the base of the dock, their feet not touching the wet sand. To the left of the dock, were Sigyn's parents and their youngest, Aaren, seemingly far more excited for the occasion and location than Loki's.

Behind them were their friends. Not those featured in Thor's heroic tales or Odin's long-winded congratulatory speeches. The underappreciated, like Loki and Sigyn themselves.

Behind Odin and Thor, as Loki's guests of honor stood row upon row of working diplomats. The men and women of the Nine Realms who had frequented Loki's guest rooms before they had been reclaimed. The ones who came to see him. The ones who did the grunt work. The men who hammered out peace treaties that men like Odin simply signed. The women who dealt in trade deals that made their noble counterparts like Frigga rich beyond belief. There were some forty odd of them from all over the realms and beyond, and Odin didn't recognize a single one of them.

They were backed by mages and magicians. The students Loki had dedicated his life to training. The ones who saw a better way.

Sigyn's part was filled with Asgard's lower class. The people Odin had distanced his family from that Delling had mingled his with. The fishermen who kept the dock and the waters clean and working for the Royals to enjoy. The cooks who would make their dinner free of charge as their gift, who cooked for the King every day unnoticed by the man. The seamstress who created Sigyn's dress, who had made many of Frigga's own without so much as a passing glance from the Queen. The healers, Eir and those under her employ, who had delivered every man, woman, and child on the beach. The unknown soldiers who would die in battle beside their commanders and have that called victory.

All came to see Loki and Sigyn. All except the elite. The Lords and Ladies of Asgard, who were appalled to stand in sand on a beach among commoners, hadn't made the trip, and Loki and Sigyn wouldn't have had it any other way.

Frigga stood at the end of the dock, the only part of the ceremony Sigyn and Loki couldn't forsake. She was waiting beside her second son, Loki, for Sigyn's approach.

Loki was expected to be flanked by four men. In the palace, it would have been Thor, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, but on the dock, it was Sigyn's brothers, the ones he truly thought of as family. Narfi stood closest to his side, followed by the others in order of birth.

Walking ahead of his bride, Loki saw her choices. She would have been expected to choose the highest ranking nobility in Asgard, had they followed tradition, and in some regards she did. Her three sisters led the line. First, Eira, then Dagmar, then Agda. Her final choice was Freyja, and truer nobility had never been seen than Freyja, Sigyn's nearest and dearest friend.

Freyja shone like a star, bedecked in head to toe in pure gold. On any other day, in any other place, she would have dazzled all that beheld her, and she would have enjoyed it. Instead, Freyja hung her head just as the three girls before her did. She walked quietly and passively, not drawing any more attention than necessary. Loki thought she might actually be using what magic she could wield to dampen her looks, to not steal Sigyn's day.

There was no danger of that.

Sigyn followed behind the four. The crowd parted before her in a wave, making her location obvious as the path formed and closed around her till her feet hit the sand.

She looked a vision. Loki had never seen another creature more beautiful than Sigyn, and he never would. He fell in love with her all over again. It was like watching the last fifty years play out before him in a moment that no one would ever take from him.

The heat of battle would only spawn fond memories of their playful debates. In the depths of his pain, he would remember her care for his trauma. Deep in his thankless labors, he would recall her unending praise. No matter how dark his life became, he would cling to the scent of her hair, the taste of her lips, the feel of her hand in his, the image of her walking toward him, the sound of her saying she loved him. With her at his side and in his mind, Loki could face the world.

* * *

They'd only been married for a hundred and fifty years. Longer than any mortals' marriage had ever lasted, but very much still the early years of an Asgardian's.

Frigga was the one who brought up children first.

Loki wasn't even surprised when he walked into his mother's personal chambers, searching for his wife, and saw Frigga stitching away on some frilly piece of clothing, clearly meant for a small child. Goddess of Marriage, she so often invested herself in the lives and offspring of couples she brought together. "And what have you there, mother? I hope Thor hasn't done something heinous."

"Your brother has got no woman with child. Don't fret, Loki." Frigga assured him without ceasing her work.

"Then who's is it?" He knew the answer before he finished the question.

Frigga set the garment aside and looked her son over. "Yours, of course. Who else would I be knitting green dresses for?"

Loki gave his mother a stern look that she thoroughly ignored.

"You can't blame me for wanting grandchildren, Loki." Frigga immediately began to protest. "You're a happily married man with a beautiful wife who loves you more than anything else in this realm or any other."

"As I love her," Loki reciprocated without hesitation.

"Then why not now?" Frigga stood and crossed the room to grasp her sons arms. "You love her; she loves you. You do want children; don't you?" Frigga looked doubtful at her own question, not doubtful that Loki would want children, more doubtful that any son of hers wouldn't want children.

"Mother," Loki shrugged off her grip and patted her shoulder gently. "That is not a matter for today. That is a matter for centuries from now."

Frigga's expression was a stern one as she looked over Loki's defensive posture. "And have you spoken to your wife about this?"

"I… What do you mean?" Loki hesitated.

Frigga smiled. It was not a common occurrence to catch Loki wrong footed. Even his parents relished in the moment when they managed to catch him off guard. "Your wife," Frigga said, as if she need remind him who his wife was, "have you asked her for her thoughts on the matter?"

Loki cast his eyes away, looking for something in the room to draw him away.

In truth, he hadn't spoken to Sigyn about children. He had assumed, perhaps naively, that they would agree on the matter. She was his soulmate after all. They were supposed to be together in all things. Not necessarily alike in all things, as their varying tastes and personalities had proved, but they were supposed to face everything together, at each other's sides.

Children would be quite the thing to face. Loki had assumed they would be of the same mind, that neither of them would be forced to face that particular challenge before they were ready, that neither would hold the other back from their dream life if it was what they longed for. He had assumed their opinion in such matters would be shared.

"Mother," Loki ran a tired hand over his face. "Must you drive a wedge in my marriage so soon after it has begun."

"I have no wedge, my son. Merely the presence of mind that your wife is a young woman who may want to have children before she is too old to keep up."

Loki rolled his eyes and turned away, "It will be millennia before that day comes."

"She has millennia left to birth a child, true enough, but if she wishes to be young and energetic for their young lives and their children's after that she won't wish to wait till the end of her rope arrives."

Frigga was pushing her son; they both knew that. She longed for grandchildren, and she knew it would be many centuries before Thor had hope to give her one, so many centuries that she was not sure she would live to see it. Loki and Sigyn were her hope to see her family grow.

Loki took the push, though not in precisely the direction his mother wished. "I will speak to my wife of your concerns, Mother, once I find her."

"Yes," Frigga acquiesced, "you will no doubt find her in the study. She was entertaining your guest from Nidavellir for the day."

Loki's head whipped around to narrow his gaze on Frigga. "The one you were meant to attend to?" He glowered, "Mother, why?"

"I wished to work with my ladies-in-waiting for the day. Your wife did not seem to mind my request."

"Mother, Eitri despises me." Loki huffed, containing his anger and made for the door. "You were meant to entertain him so I might work a deal with his father unimpeded. Now you have slighted him by leaving him to a lesser goddess and left him alone with my wife."

He stormed from the room, giving his mother no time to respond or explain herself. Loki loved his mother dearly, but it was moments such as this that reminded him her faults.

She had given him his wife, the greatest gift Loki could have ever hoped to receive, yet she was only interested in their life together where it related to her domain. She cared greatly for her duties as mother. She cared greatly for the art of childbirth. She cared greatly for the beauty of love and marriage. Where Loki's life, where Sigyn's life, did not intersect those narrow lines she was neglectful of any supporting interest.

Even now, Frigga's distracted thoughts on grandchildren had endangered any hope of her ever having them.

Loki would put nothing past Eitri. The man had been bested by Loki on more than one occasion, each time worse than the last. He longed for his revenge.

Loki burst through the door to the study, hand already reaching beneath his ceremonial coat to retrieve the dagger with him at all times.

"Ah, my husband, at long last," Sigyn jumped to her feet with a warm smile.

Loki swiftly removed his hand from beneath the cloth and put on a matching smirk to mask the panic that had marred his features only moments before.

"Hello, my love," Loki pulled his approaching wife into his side as he surveyed the scene.

Sigyn and Eitri had occupied a smaller side table of Asgard's main study. Two lush arm chairs flanked a table propped high with three thick texts and two glasses of a deep red wine. The image wasn't at all dissimilar to his nights spent with Sigyn in their private chambers.

Eitri, for all of Loki's worry, appeared entirely calm, even in his presence. It, admittedly, did nothing to dissuade Loki's suspicions, but he allowed it to color his exterior to a more natural state as he eyed up his opponent. Eitri simply lounged back in his chair, undisturbed, with a casual look of contemplation.

"Prince Loki, good of you to join us." Eitri replied smoothly.

"Of course, Eitri," Loki mimicked the tone, "my mother mentioned I might find the pair of you here when I was done speaking with your father. I had hoped you would join us all at the royal table this evening."

Eitri pushed to his feet and ambled towards the door. "Of course, prince. I would not miss a moment in the lovely company of Princess Sigyn." Eitri caught Sigyn's hand as he passed and pressed a quick kiss to the back of it. "Until then."

"It was lovely meeting you," Sigyn called as the dwarf left her with her husband.

Loki remained silent till the moment Eitri was gone from earshot. "Did he harm you?" Loki cupped Sigyn's face in his hands, looking her over for any sign of ill intent.

Sigyn shook her hand, freeing herself from Loki's hands with the motion. "He was hostile towards my presence when I first arrived, but he did nothing to me directly. He was actually quite kind by the end."

"I'm relieved." Loki pulled her into his arms for a moment, pressing his lips to her hair. "I did not intend to subject you to such a man."

"Some men cannot be avoided." Sigyn squeezed Loki's shoulder in reassurance. "Now, I believe someone is waiting to speak with you." She nodded towards the door. "I will see you in our chambers before dinner."

As Loki's head turned to see who she was indicating, Sigyn brushed her lips over his cheek in a return gesture before quickly making her escape.

Frigga stood somewhat breathless in Sigyn's wake; her expression a mixture of worry and confusion as she clutched the door's open frame.

"Did you know?"

"Know what?" Frigga breathed out with a sigh.

"That they would be fine. Did you watch them with the sight and know my wife would be fine?" Loki demanded.

Frigga didn't meet her son's gaze but gave him an honest answer nonetheless. "No. I did not see."

Loki marched to stand in front of his an act far bolder than the typically subtle God of Magic had ever committed before, Loki grasped his mother by the chin and forced her too look him in the eye as he glared down on her with an absolutely livid fire.

"I tolerate a great deal for the Nine Realms." His tone was low, threatening. "I tolerate cruel whispers from Aesir nobility. I tolerate utter disregard from Odin's warriors. I tolerate disgusting rumors from your ladies. I tolerate great abuse from my own brother. I even tolerate complete indifference from my entire family. And I tolerate all of it with a smile."

Loki was certainly not smiling now. "But I will not tolerate this. Odin denies me ever wearing the crown, yet he forces me to work to the bone as though it is already on my head. You will not do that to Sigyn. Because of you and your husband, Sigyn will never be Queen, and as long as I breath you will never force her to do your duty as Odin forces me. Whether or not you and Odin are fit for the roles, you are Queen. You will act as such. Are my words clear?"

Frigga nodded in wordless shock.

Loki released his mother and walked past her, still fuming. As he reached the corner of the hall, he turned back to see Frigga watching him go and added. "You, and Odin, will never endanger my wife again."

* * *

Frigga was wrong in many things, but she was right about Sigyn. Loki needed to speak with her.

He caught up to his wife quickly and led her back to their chambers, arm-in-arm with a smile, not hinting at all of the confrontation he had just had with his mother.

"How was your day, my love?" Loki spoke fondly now that they were alone.

Sigyn hummed to herself. "Stressful, I suppose. I wasn't expecting to deal with a delegate today. I had planned to spend the day with my brother in the library."

"Narfi is still researching?" Loki focused on the happier memory.

"Yes," Sigyn smirked up at her husband, "you give him a great deal to do, a great deal of responsibility."

"Oh," Loki teased, "is he complaining to you, my love?"

Sigyn gasped in mock offense, holding a hand to her heart, "Not in the least. My brother loves his work."

Loki reached their hall and let his wife into their rooms ahead of himself. "I know he does."

"Truly, Loki," Sigyn rounded on him the moment the door swung shut behind him. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she touched a quick kiss to his cheek. "I will never be able to thank you for all you've done for him. He has learned so much from you. Narfi admires you more than he admires anyone in this world."

"No more than he admires you," Loki dismissed with a smile. "And you are certainly worthy of admiration."

Sigyn playfully rolled her eyes and pulled herself from Loki's form. "He'll be joining us at dinner will he not? Eitri and I were discussing him at length."

Loki sighed with a shake of his head. He did not want to think about Eitri. "I am sorry you had to deal with him. It should have been my mother's task, but she…" He was looking for some excuse, but there was none. "She lazed her time away in a daydream instead."

Sigyn opened the door to Loki's room so she might use the mirror just inside. "Well, her daydreams are usually realities unrealized." Pulling pins from her hair, she questioned good naturedly. "What were these dreams of?"

"You and I," Loki thought, for only a moment, of telling her something else, redirecting her to new fields; but he could never lie to Sigyn. Even in their youth, the first time they had sat together in his rooms, he had only managed to withhold from her, never deceive her. She was the truth behind his lies.

"What did she see of us?" Sigyn called as she moved deeper into Loki's room, no doubt further overtaking his things with her own.

"Her visions are of no concern. The truth of them is not hers to decide." Loki waved away his mother's involvement, following after his wife.

Sigyn was poised on the edge of one of the chests in his room. Using the rough leather canvas as a seat from which to remove her shoes around the many folds of her dress. "And what is this truth you must decide?" She huffed as she filled with the small, temperamental latch.

Loki chuckled despite himself and came to kneel on the floor at her side, undoing the buckles of both sandals with ease. "The decision is ours, never mine alone."

Soft, smooth hands slid slowly over Sigyn's skin, starting at her knee and trailing down to her ankle, sliding under the golden straps and removing them from her aching feet. Her head lulled back with an unbidden smile as Loki repeated the gentle caress down her other leg.

They often began this way, Loki lovingly caring for her or dutifully helping her with some menial task. Whatever the purpose of his assistance, they always found themselves in this position. Her standing or sitting above him, Loki on his knees before her.

Loki did nothing half way, most of all loving her. He loved her with all of his being, with all of his heart. In every moment she allowed, he worshipped at her feet.

"What decision must we make?" Sigyn breathed out on a contended sigh as Loki's fingers rubbed into her aching arches, massaging away any pain.

"My mother wished to speak to me of children."

Sigyn's eyes flashed open, body jerking from Loki's grasp to look down on him with shock. "She what?"

"Children," Loki sat back to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest to watch Sigyn's expression carefully. "I caught her making clothes for a daughter we've not yet had."

"And she saw this?" Sigyn unconsciously moved a hand to her stomach, "She saw me with child?"

"I don't believe so," Loki hedged. "I believe it was just a hope of hers."

Sigyn slumped back against the wall, sinking deep in thought as her eyes glazed over, unseeing towards the opposite wall.

"My love," Loki touched her knee, drawing her back quickly before Sigyn had the chance to think too long on the matter. "This is not a decision that needs to be made today, tomorrow, or even this century. I speak it to you because I want you and I to be of the same mind in all things, not to ask you to choose now."

"I know Loki," Sigyn absently rested a hand to his cheek. "It was simply not a thought that ever came to my mind."

Loki nodded to himself, "If you don't wish a child, than I will see to it that my mother ceases…"

"No!" Sigyn cut her husband off quickly. "I just… I never thought of it, to be sure; but that's not to say I would never wish one."

Loki turned his head in her hand to kiss her wrist. "Whatever you decide, I will follow you."

"This is our decision, Loki." Sigyn reminded him with a smile. "Not yours alone, and certainly not mine. Ours. Together. I'd like to know what you think."

Loki returned her smile with a warm one of his own. "I can't deny the thought had crossed my mind."

"All thoughts cross your mind," Sigyn teased. "It is the destiny of all ideas to find their way into your mind."

Loki chuckled, "You think too highly of me."

"Not possible." Sigyn immediately dismissed. "Now share with me these thoughts."

Loki pulled himself from the floor to join Sigyn sitting on his chest. He sat pressed against her side, in equal parts to fit atop the small surface and to be closer to her.

"Sigyn, I will not lie and say the thought of you with my child is an easy thought for me." Loki took her hand in his and gripped it with a force that reminded Sigyn just how strong he truly was. "It fills me with a fear I cannot comprehend, a fear for your life, a fear for our child's life, a fear for how the Aesir would treat the child, a fear for how the Aesir would treat you, a fear of becoming like my father. I see all the ways it could go horribly wrong, all the ways we could lose our child, all the ways I could lose you. I pride myself on knowing what will come and preparing for it all. A child, our child, is something even I could not prepare for."

Sigyn nodded along with his words. She did not, in truth, share his concerns; but she could not dismiss them lightly. While they did not concern her, they were all rational thoughts, rational expectations of what might come to past, all except one.

"Loki, my prince," Sigyn turned into her husband, waiting till he met her eyes, "you are not your father, nor will you ever be." Her touch to his cheek tender, but her voice was firm. "You are a better man than Odin. You are a wiser, kinder, cleverer man than he could ever hope to be. He pins you down for fear you will realize your greatness and realize he needs you far more than you need him."

Loki chuckled to himself and shook his head, "The thought is a nice one, but not one I see truth in."

Sigyn kissed her husband's forehead with a sad smile. "One day you will, and I cannot wait to see the day you step out from the shadow of Thor and Odin."

Loki looked down, "A shadow our child would be born into."

"A shadow our child would break free from as well." Sigyn pulled her hand from his to cradle his face in both of hers and force him to keep her eye contact. "If you do not wish to have a child, I will be content in life; but I refuse to allow you to eliminate the option for any reason that involves your father, your mother, or your brother. You are mine as much as theirs, and I won't let them take you from me."

"I am yours far more than theirs, my love," Loki assured her. If he knew nothing else, he knew that, "I am yours, always yours."

"Than tell me what you want, not what holds you back, tell me what draws you forward." Sigyn pressed.

With a hesitant nod, Loki thought back on all the moments, all the thoughts of children, before his fears overcome him, "The thought of you growing with my child, you carrying part of me inside of you, you birthing proof of our love for all the realms to see. The image of you, sitting here, in our room, cradling my son or daughter to your chest. The work of turning your old rooms into a nursery for our babe. The journey to see your family with our child, of presenting your parents their first grandchild."

The thoughts, the pictures, flew from Loki with abandon. He hadn't realized how often he thought of children until he began recanting the memories to Sigyn. He had too many to name.

"Reading our child to sleep as I do you. Teaching them magic in the courtyard where I learned. Watching them find a soulmate the way I found you. Seeing the love I feel for you mirrored in their eyes." He didn't voice his final thought. He didn't say out loud, 'being a better father than my own', but Sigyn knew the sentiment without words.

"I want all of those things too, Loki," She confessed. "I want to grow old with you while we watch our child grow up. I want our home filled with the joy, laughter, and love yours never was. I want us all to be happy."

"A child then?" Loki asked with a wide-eyed shock.

Sigyn shook her head, "Not today. If you're willing to wait for me, I think I need some time before we expand our family."

Loki pulled Sigyn to him, burying his face in her hair as she did the same to his chest. "My love, I would wait an eternity for you."

"Just one eternity?" Sigyn smiled, tears rimming her eyes.

"Forever," Loki amended. "We have all the time in the world, and I want to spend every second of it with you."

* * *

Eight hundred years softened Sigyn's heart on a great many things, but it had hardened her heart to Loki's family.

Sometime after their second century of marriage, she stopped believing Frigga that things would just magically happen for Loki. She stopped believing that Odin and Thor would accept him for who he was, that he would be appreciated for his work, that he would be heralded as the great warrior of Asgard that he was. Sigyn stopped believing Frigga's "all in good time" and decided to make it time.

She worked in the orphanages telling tales Loki's prowess. She visited at the side of the wounded soldiers telling them of a way to fight without the bloodshed. She attended shopkeepers to make known who they could thank for the wares of their stores. She greeted Vanir dignitaries with Freyja to show all the work Loki had done that Odin claimed.

Sigyn couldn't fix Thor or Odin's ways. She couldn't change Frigga's seeming indifference, but she would change what she could. She could give the people all the information they needed to appreciate their second prince. She could see his tales of heroism told to as many ears as Thor's. She could see to so much more than Frigga had promised. She could see to the things Loki actually deserved, not just what Frigga wanted for him.

None of the royals had noticed her work, not even Loki. Courtesy of Odin, she had the people's loyalty. She swore before the people of Asgard that only death would part her from Loki, and she knew in her heart that only death would part the people from her. Because even among soulmates, everyone knew that Sigyn's love for Loki and his love for her in return was something special.

Loki deserved, for once in his life, to be someone's first choice, and for her, he was the only choice.

His peace treaty was up in smoke. Loki was sure of it.

It seemed such a simple job: Meet Laufey and a retinue of Frost Giants at the edge of neutral ground, Niffleheim. Renew the terms of Odin's thousand year peace for another thousand years. "Don't touch Asgard, and we won't touch Jotunheim."

Such a simple task until he followed it with, "Take Thor with you, Loki. He is to be King one day. He must know the terms of the deal and the way it is made, even if it is not his responsibility to draft the peace."

Loki knew Thor wouldn't make it easy. Nothing was easy with the God of Thunder.

Thor had instantly insisted on bringing the Warrior's Three and Sif. "To be safe," he'd lied. Loki warned him they couldn't be seen as an army prepared to attack.

Thor only laughed at his little brother, told Loki that if he wanted to look like a weak willed woman he should bring some ladies instead.

Loki pointed out that he didn't ask Thor to come, that he'd prefer Freyja and Sigyn, the ladies he knew Thor was referencing. Thor had swung at Loki then. Loki thought Thor was just proving his point, but Thor thought of it as defending himself.

Odin would hear none of Loki's concerns. "Eight hundred years married to you has done Sigyn well. Perhaps Thor is correct, and you should take her as well."

"If the All-Father thinks for even a second," Freyja snarled as she followed Loki from the throne room.

"I know, Freyja." Loki waved her thoughts away. "Believe me, I know."

"I'm coming with you." Freyja grabbed Loki's arm and pulled him to a stop.

Loki turned on the Vanir goddess with a doubtful expression. "Freyja, I don't think that wise."

"Don't confuse me with Thor. I'm capable of keeping my hatred of the frost giants in check."

"Are you?" Loki countered. "No one has more reason to hate them than you. Forgive me for doubting that you have entirely honorable intentions."

Freyja rolled her eyes, exasperated. "Odin just ordered you to bring your wife. You need another level head, Loki. You really trust our future king with her life? Knowing his temper? Knowing his incompetence?"

It was true. Eight hundred years had done nothing for Thor. Loki had learned to be more loving. Freyja had become more open and trusting. Sigyn had matured. Asgard's nobility had become more caring and compassionate with the common people. The common people, as a result, were kinder, more grateful for their leadership. Everything Frigga had hoped for had come to past for everyone but the palace itself, but Thor.

"We leave in two days, at dawn," Loki ground through his teeth. "Don't be late."

Loki didn't have to worry about Freyja. He, Sigyn, and Freyja stood at the Bifrost for near two hours before Thor and his friends showed.

"Brother!" Thor threw his arms wide. "I see you took my advice," His tone was purely condescending as he eyed Sigyn and Freyja. "How sweet of you to join us, Sister."

"As I recall, your presence is the reason mine is required," Sigyn replied coolly. "We are all merely here to observe. We should all try to keep out of Loki's way and allow him to handle the discussion."

"But of course," Thor clapped Sigyn on the back with such a force that Loki's arm flung out to grab her before she went flying from the Bridge. "My, Lady Sigyn," Thor roared with laughter. "Let us hope Loki's methods work. You would surely be in danger in any fight."

"It's Princess Sigyn, or have you forgotten the wedding. As I recall, you attended," Loki spat out, helping his wife to her feet.

Sigyn smiled and rested a hand on Loki's cheek. "It's fine, my prince. Thor was only jesting," Sigyn's eyes turned harsh as she looked over her shoulder. "Right Thor?"

"Right, of course, Sister," Thor smiled brightly, his usual smile that showed just how little he knew of what was going on. "Shall we head to Niffleheim?"

Those who didn't know Loki often seemed to think that he had some level of foresight. The arrogance of great warriors, like Thor and the Warrior's Three, often stoked this flame, for they made little to no effort to understand magic or its workings, deeming it the lesser art of fighting.

Some who wielded magic did have the sight. Loki was not among them. Frigga was the prime example of one with the sight, hers being the greatest and furthest reaching that the Nine Realms had ever seen.

It was a lesser known fact that Freyja, the Goddess of Beauty, also wielded some magic, and while she was not as advanced as Frigga, she did at times manage some foresight. Though, it always came to her naturally, never did she manage to call it to her.

It was that knowledge that sent a shiver down Loki's spine when Freyja leaned over in the Bifrost chamber and whispered for only he and Sigyn to hear. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Prophecy?" Sigyn knew of Freyja's sight as well. "What can you see?"

Freyja stood up straight with a heavy sigh. "i'm not sure, but... Nothing good."

* * *

"Nothing good." Freyja's words.

"Nothing good." She was right about that.

"Nothing good." The understatement to end all understatements.

"Nothing good." Why hadn't he heeded the warning.

"Nothing good." He could have postponed.

"Nothing good." He could have sent her home.

"Nothing good." He could have done something, anything.

"Nothing good." Frigga must have seen what would happened.

"Nothing good." Odin could have listened to him.

"Nothing good." Thor could have stopped this.

"Nothing good." Loki could have stopped this.

"Nothing good." Two words that would haunt Loki for the rest of his meager slice of eternity.

* * *

"Thor, please, see reason," Loki pulled his brother away from the Frost Giant's in hushed tones.

"See reason? See reason!" Thor's voice was rising in volume and aggression. "Tell them to see reason, brother! They mock me with their slights today! I am Asgard's future king, and they treat me like a child!"

"You're acting like a child, Thor!" Sigyn spat, leaving Sif with Volstagg and Hogun to try desperately to calm down Laufey and his men. "Have they not slighted all of us? Have they not called me a prince's whore? Have they not called Sif a man? They have treated Freyja a hundred times worse than they have treated you. They mock and ridicule, as that is their way. The only difference is they hurl insults at us and facts at you." Sigyn gripped Thor's cape and pulled him around to face her. "Prove them wrong, and maybe then you can complain!"

Thor glared down at his sister-by-marriage with all the venom he had directed at his enemies just moments before. "You are the Goddess of Loyalty in Asgard, not Jotunheim. I am your prince. Learn your place."

Loki wrenched Thor back by the collar of his armor, throwing Thor to the icy ground behind him with a strength Thor did not know his brother to possess. Loki placed himself between Thor and Sigyn. "Speak to her like that again, brother, and it won't be Jotunn's you're fighting."

"Ha!" A cry went out from behind them. Loki reached back and turned perpendicular to Thor and Laufey, keeping both within sight and Sigyn at his back.

Laufey was on one knee in front of their comrades, laughing at the spectacle that was the Aesir. "You bicker amongst yourselves as though you are beasts locked in the same cage, fighting for space; and you expect us," Laufey gestured to the group of Frost Giants beside him, "us, who are outside the cage looking in at you, to bend the knee as though you, the animals, are our masters."

That was all it took.

Loki was honestly surprised they had lasted that long. Laufey had greeted them with a sneer of Odin sending children to do his bidding, and Thor had actually managed to hold in his rage, probably because of Freyja's warning glares.

It had taken Laufey some goading, calling Thor a woman, insulting his appearance, questioning his strength; but eventually Thor took the Frost Giant's bait.

His hammer left his hand without warning, and the fighting had begun. War broke out a meager ten minutes after their feet touched down in Niffleheim.

"Get to the Bifrost!" The cry came from Loki. Two of Laufey's Frost Giants were beating a shield that he had conjured so she might make her escape.

Sigyn turned to run.

She spotted him long before the others. The Frost Giant who'd broken past Volstagg at the end of the line. The Frost Giant headed straight for the God of Thunder's unprotected back, a spear flying through the tips of his fingers. He was going to kill the Crown Prince of Asgard.

Sigyn wasn't a warrior, and she didn't care to become one. Sigyn could hold her own against a common soldier. Over the centuries married to Loki, her husband had ensured she'd trained well enough to survive till help arrived. Fighting a typical Aesir soldier wasn't the same as fighting a Frost Giant though. That was the sort of thing no one could train for, the sort of thing Sigyn hadn't wanted to train for.

Sigyn didn't have Thor's hammer, Loki's magic, Volstagg's experience, Hogun's temperament, Fandrall's confidence, Sif's training, or Freyja's natural skill. As Thor loved to point out, she was only the Goddess of Loyalty. The only weapon she had was her loyalty to Asgard, even its insufferable prince.

She couldn't destroy the spear or heal the wound like her husband's magic would, but she could take the blow. She would take the blow.

The spear pierced Thor's back, cutting clean through his spine at the space in the lower back of his armor. Thor fell from the blow, but it was Sigyn's blood that dripped into the snow.

Thor saw the spear sticking through his abdomen but felt no pain and thought nothing of it. The spear went clean through with a quick tug, and Thor jumped in the fray again.

* * *

"Nothing good."

* * *

"Sigyn!" Loki shouted into the falling snow. "Sigyn!"

Heimdall had sent Odin with reinforcements. The Aesir might at their back had quieted the fighting quickly, and Odin sent Laufey home to resume talks at a different date.

The skirmish was over.

"Sigyn!" He'd lost sight of her in the flurry of activity, but he knew she was back there somewhere, somewhere behind his shield. She was safe somewhere; she just couldn't hear him. "Sigyn!" He tried again.

Odin's hand surprised Loki on his shoulder. "She's over there, my son." Odin pointed into the wind.

Loki followed his father's direction without question, pushing through the snow and ice calling for his wife. "Sigyn!" Nothing, no response.

He heard Freyja in the distance, heading some other direction looking for Sigyn as well, but the only other sounds came from the laughing group of soldiers who had come with Odin, congratulating Thor and his friends on a fight well won.

"Sigyn!" He shouted over their noise as best he could.

Then he saw it, the only patch of color against the white, a woman lying in the snow. "Over here!" Loki shouted to no one in particular, probably Freyja as she was the only one looking.

Loki pushed through the snow as fast as he could manage, calling Sigyn's name the whole way. Maybe she slipped, more likely the cold of the icy realm got to her. He would need to get her back to the Bifrost, back to Eir quickly before the sickness set in. "Sigyn, it's alright now. The Giants are gone," He spoke within earshot. "Odin has sent them away. We will return later, without Thor to…"

Sigyn hadn't been wearing red that day.

"Sigyn!" Loki fell to his knees beside his wife, frantically searching for a wound he couldn't find. His hands felt around her stomach, her chest, her legs, but there was nothing, not even a scratch. He didn't know where the blood had come from, but he knew in his heart it was hers.

There wasn't a scratch to be found on her. No gaping wounds, not even a papercut. She lay before him then as perfect as she always had been and would be. If it weren't for the changing color of her dress, the deep red snow circling her body, Loki would have thought her sleeping.

"No, no, no," Loki ripped open the bottom of her tunic and put his hands to her skin. He could fix it. He had to fix it. "Stay with me, Sigyn."

Loki began to chant, the same spell, the same litany of words he had used to save her brother, Ivar, all those years ago.

The spell required unending recitation, unending eye contact, unending concentration, but Loki was capable of none of those things. His voice cracked on every word that left his lips. His eyes didn't blink but the tears that poured down his cheeks obscured his vision more than enough. His memories of her, his love for her, his need for her, broke his concentration.

Not Sigyn. Anyone but Sigyn. The Norns could take his life. They could take his family. They could take Asgard. They could take the Nine Realms and beyond, but not Sigyn.

Loki knew there had been a time he had existed without her, but he couldn't remember it. It was a shroud of darkness. His life began the day he stood in the throne room and watched Frigga name this beautiful creature his eternity. His story began when he stepped into their chambers and saw her meandering around his rooms with wide-eyed innocence that believed he was actually worthy of something so good and pure as her love and affection. She was his life. She told his story. Without her, it all ended.

"Please," Loki begged her as a sob left his throat, "Don't leave me."

"My son," Odin's hands lifted Loki to his feet, stopping the spell he tried grievously to start again and again. "Your wife is gone."

The words were so final. If they were spoken by the All-Father they must ring true, but Loki didn't care. When had Odin ever cared?

"No!" Loki ripped himself from Odin's grip and fell to the ground, bent over his wife, "She can't leave me." Desperation dripped from Loki's every word. Pain came off his form in waves.

If this was to be her end, then Loki would end beside her.

Odin sighed, heavy with the weight of the moment. "Come, Loki. There is nothing to be done for her. We must take her to be buried in Asgard." There was no comfort, no caring, no love to Odin's words. They weren't the consolations of his father. They were the commands of his kind.

The roar of rage that left Loki then shook the Nine Realms.

Niflheim quaked with a power the God of Magic had never before unleashed. The snow piled high atop the range in the distance began to slide down the faces of the mountains in an avalanche of unmatched proportion. The ice, primordial ice, that stretched for miles beneath the surface on which they stood, that made the very core of Niflheim, cracked in two under the weight of Loki's pain.

Where Niflheim ended and Muspelheim began, the steam of ice meeting fire ceased. Muspelheim went quiet. Flames died in their pits. Lava cooled to hardened ground. Volcanoes collapsed from within, and the entire surface of the realm began to crumble into ash.

Jotunnheim felt the worst of it. They had rebuilt so much since Odin had led the final battle there to win the war, but with a single shout, Loki brought it all crashing down around them, on them.

The dwarves ran for their lives, hopping on any ship they could find to escape Nidavellir as the star at the core of their forge shuddered with instability, belting out deadly flares and cooling to solid rock from moment to moment. Svartalfheim and Alfheim, the kingdoms of the elves both dark and light, filled with screams as their own magic began to tear them apart from within. The tremors that reached Midgard were thought to be an earthquake, the deadliest one in history.

No one died in Vanaheim or Asgard. They were just beyond Loki's reach, but they still felt the shift. Those attuned to it would later say they felt Yggdrasil itself begin to shake.

His students, his companions, those who'd felt the weight of Loki's magic, knew immediately who was to blame, and high in the palace Frigga looked on as part of her son left the world, never to return.

* * *

It began with the Vanir royal family: Freyja, her brother, and her father. "My King," Freyja addressed Odin from her knee.

"Rise and share your words with me."

Freyja rose, but her eyes were not on the King. "I have retrieved this for you, my Prince." She walked up the steps to Loki and laid a roll of cloth at his feet. "It is the tapestry of you and our lost princess, for your eyes only."

"Thank you Freyja," Loki's words were as dead as his eyes, even as they left his lips.

"Asgard feels your loss, my prince. May you meet your love again in Valhalla." Freyja whispered before she stepped back. "Forgive me, my King," She bowed, "You have lost much, but none have suffered as Prince Loki. I pray your losses will soon abait and that Asgard's loyalty may soon find a new home."

Odin sat at his throne between his sons and in front of his wife to receive the condolences. As was the case when nobility died, mourning was to be addressed to Odin which passed to its intended recipient through him, a sign that even a slight of pain to their king was greater than the deepest hurt of subject's beneath him.

Freyja was the first of many to forsake tradition, the first of all, in fact. As all of Asgard followed the Vanir's lead, not a soul spoke to the King. Some even forgot to bow to their All-Father.

All emotion was felt for Loki, and Loki seemed completely numb to return it. His eyes were glazed over. His words were simple, unfeeling thanks. His movements were nonexistent. At the end of receiving each day, the only thing that woke him from his haze was Narfi, his apprentice and wife's brother, at his side, touching a hand to Loki's shoulder to lead him back to Sigyn's chambers.

The procession lasted every day for three weeks, longer even than Odin's father Borr. Sigyn's mourning was proof of Odin's greatest error.

He had given Sigyn Asgard's loyalty, and even in death she wielded it.

Loki brought death and destruction to the Nine Realms, and the people did not blame him. They were angry Sigyn was gone, and they blamed Odin.

* * *

Without Sigyn, Loki found he had no real purpose.

He stayed in mourning in his room for a decade, exactly as long as it took him to fall in love with Sigyn.

He spent his days reading aloud to an empty room, the way he used to read aloud to her. He laid to the far side of his bed as if she would crawl in next to him and need the space. He left her things sprawled out across tables untouched by time. The blanket she had curled up in the morning before she left was still draped across her lounge.

The only change was the fireplace. He had employed Narfi's help hanging the tapestry Freyja had gifted him above his mantle. It was the one Frigga had kept in the vaults for eight hundred years. The one Frigga made for her own anniversary just after Loki met his mate. The one of Sigyn and Loki kissing, standing in front of that very fireplace, holding each other in a passionate embrace.

He'd wanted it hidden when it was made, but Loki would have given anything to show it to Sigyn. He'd give everything to recreate the tapestry, not that they hadn't done so many times over the centuries, but the memories the image brought back would never be enough. He spent hours, days, staring it.

He didn't need any help remembering her. He remembered every moment with Sigyn from their first meeting to their last morning. He remembered every touch, every kiss, every embrace. The tapestry merely helped him remember her as the lively, beautiful woman who agreed to marry him, not the cold, lifeless corpse Odin had ripped from his arms.

Loki spent hours watching it, as if the picture would somehow move, and Sigyn would step from the cloth and embrace him once more.

Narfi was the only one who could pull him away from it. He was the only one Loki let in their chambers.

He'd taken Loki's duties as diplomat and advisor. He'd dealt with the immediate damage of Loki's explosive anger, and after that it was understood Narfi would be in charge until Loki felt able to return.

"Loki," Narfi called his mentor out of his reverie. "You're needed today."

"You have my full authority and support," Loki waved him away, staring unseeingly at the book in his lap.

"Loki," Narfi pulled it from his grasp, forcing Loki to meet his gaze. "It's Frost Giants. You're needed."

Frost Giants, Jotunns, Jotunheim. Three names no one was allowed to speak in Loki's presence anymore. The shelves of Loki's room quaked. "What have they done?"

"Nothing yet," Narfi wasn't put off by the display. He was used to Loki's magic now. He understood his grief. Narfi pulled Loki's horned helmet from behind him and held it out to the God of Magic. "They're on their way. I don't know why; no one will tell me. The feasting hall has been prepared."

* * *

Peace. The word was acid on Loki's tongue.

Odin offered peace to the monsters who killed Loki's wife. He offered them the same terms he offered a thousand years ago, the same terms he offered the day Sigyn had died, and Laufey accepted it with a knowing smile to Loki.

Odin had denied Loki his vengeance.

Or so Odin thought.

Odin underestimated his son. He underestimated Asgard.

Loki stormed into the feasting hall with all eyes upon him. He walked to the head of his table with a righteous anger that he fully intended to unleash on the first person to slight him.

He should have gone somewhere else till his rage cooled. He didn't want to unleash it on Narfi or Freyja, but he needed to speak with them. He needed someone, someone who knew her, someone who cared, to share in this so called peace that was to be announced.

"Odin means to…" His growl stopped when he took his seat and saw the unfamiliar faces beside his pair of intended confidants. "Who are they?" Loki motioned to the elderly elf couple at Freyja's side and the young elf woman next to Narfi.

"A family from Alfheim, come to witness Odin's big day." Freyja spat the words quietly enough that only Loki and Narfi could hear.

"Where are your family?" Loki turned his murderous gaze on his apprentice.

Narfi looked down to the food in front of him, but Loki saw the flash in Narfi's eyes, his own rage mirrored back to him in the gaze of the _only_ brother he had left. "We are lesser nobility. The King doesn't believe they are worthy of a gathering of this caliber. Odin hasn't allowed them to sit at the head of your table since you disappeared from court, and when Asgard is as flushed with visitors as it is today, my seat is the only one not taken from my family entirely."

Loki flashed from Narfi to Freyja for confirmation, and all he got was a nod. "They are the family of my wife. Royalty by marriage."

"A marriage the All-Father deems ended with my sister's death."

And in that sentence. In that moment, Loki found it. _Purpose_.

With a disturbing calm, Loki pushed himself to his feet. As he made a graceful exit from the hall, Freyja and Narfi met eyes with equal determination and followed after him.

They walked side by side down the hall towards Loki and Sigyn's chambers.

Freyja felt the moment Loki's magic surrounded them, shrouding them from Heimdall's sight, and she nodded to Narfi on her right when it was safe to speak.

"What are you planning, Loki?" Narfi asked.

"Vengeance."

Freyja needed only a moment to respond. "We will back you. The people will back you."

Loki smiled viciously. "The Frost Giants, Thor, Odin, all of them. They will pay."

* * *

_**Aaaaand that's the end of that.**_

_**I hope this story was sufficiently interesting, and I hope you all enjoyed or at least approve of or think this is a good ending. **_

_**I like to think this ending gives more weight and character development to Loki because with some reading between the lines we all sort of have an idea of how Loki's life in Asgard might have been, but they really don't go too much into it, so I wanted to add some of that backstory **_

_**And I wanted to do so in such a way that you could imagine the story leading into the events of Thor 1 (obviously with a time lapse between this ending and the beginning of Thor, and with a few other minor changes, but generally speaking they fit).**_

_**So, a couple things.**_

_**1) I didn't write the scene, but I really like to ponder how Sigyn's death scene here might effect Loki after he finds out that HE is a Frost Giant. I think it goes a long way towards bridging the gap between ruining Thor's coronation/getting him exiled to slaughtering all of the Jotunns. **_

_**2) I think this gives sufficient backstory and justification to the animosity Loki has for Thor and Odin because his soulmate dying for Thor and then Odin disgracing her memory are more than enough reason to hate a person imo. I think it also goes a long way towards Thor's attitude because even after he comes back from Midgard a humbled man, he doesn't really understand Loki or his reasons and in the followup to this story that would almost certainly be because he doesn't see himself as responsible for Sigyn's death even after Thor 1. There's also the sense of resignation that Odin has at the beginning of Ragnarok that this is his time and he's fine that Loki is partially responsible for it because he's finally come to terms with what he did to Sigyn. **_

_**3) Also I like the idea that Loki loves Frigga because he sees her as his mother and she gave him Sigyn but he's still a little bit put out because she has foresight and she didn't help him protect Sigyn and she didn't defend Sigyn's memory or take his side against Thor.**_

_**4) ALSO, major point that's always bothered me that Heimdall and the Warriors Three are like the only people who ever try to stop Loki either time he's on the throne, and I like to think that with Sigyn's death playing a part, that's because the people agreed with Loki and even inbetween Thor 2 and 3 they were happier with him than Odin because they were all loyal to Sigyn. **_

_**ANYWHO **_

_**Thank you for the comments! **_

_**Hope you enjoyed this let me know! **_


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